Hundreds of El Al Workers Stage a Two-hour Demonstration

Hundreds of employes of El Al overcame police roadblocks and, using some 120 vehicles, staged a two-hour demonstration yesterday near the controversial Ramot Road against “religious coersion” as part of the workers continuing efforts to prevent the implementation of the government’s decision to halt all Sabbath flights of El Al beginning September I.

The demonstration, where religious zealots frequently attack cars travelling on the Sabbath, come just two days after El Al employes refused to allow Aguda Israel passengers to enter the Ben Gurion Airport terminal.

That incident came under strong criticism today by Aguda Knesset MK Menachem Porush, who warned in several interviews that if the workers persist in their campaign against religious Jews, they will boycott the national airline “and this will be the end of El Al. “He compared the incident at Ben Gurion to the Holocaust.

While hundreds of El Al employees managed to get through the police road block and parked their vehicles in a grove next to Ramot Road, police succeeded in blocking hundreds of other El Al employes from joining the demonstration by positioning a roadblock on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway, some five miles before Jerusalem. Ramot lies north at the Jerusalem town center and is close to a number of ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

With religious children yelling “Shabbos” and occasionally throwing rocks at passing cars, the workers stayed in the gave for two hours before dispersing. Nevertheless, the El Al employes said they would hold further demonstrations against Aguda Israel which they hold responsible for the decision to ban Sabbath El Al flights.

Meanwhile, the Army Radio, quoting on Aguda spokesperson, reported today that the Council of Sages, the supreme authority of Aguda Israel, has declared a total ban on El Al. No further details were available. But Aguda Israel leaders had warned earlier that such action was possible in reaction to the Ben Gurion Airport incident. The Cabinet, at the same time,” discussed the El Al worker’s action at its weekly session and condemned the “violent and shameful demonstration.”