Olmert: Free speech is not ‘the right to destroy’

Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that the planned anti-disengagement protest march to Gush Katif should be prevented, saying that demonstrators planned to create a confrontation with security forces and indicating that the demonstrators were confusing the right of free expression with „the right to destroy.” The IDF expects Tuesday’s anti-disengagement protest in Sderot to result in much fiercer clashes with right-wing demonstrators than did the one two weeks ago in Kfar Maimon. A senior General Staff officer told Haaretz that he expects hundreds of demonstrators to try to cut through the fence around Gaza in an effort to reach the Gush Katif settlement bloc. There were conflicting reports early Monday on whether the protest would be allowed to take place. Army Radio reported that police were determined to ban the Sderot rally, which could place thousands of demonstrators within range of Palestinian rockets and mortar shells. But sources in the Yesha Settlement Council said an arrangement had been reached in principle under which police would allow a march from Sderot to the nearby Negev town of Ofakim. Defense officials believe that there are currently 2,000 Israelis in the Gaza Strip who are not registered as residents of the area, and therefore unauthorized to be there. Some were there before it was declared a closed military area, others infiltrated in the interim. „One thing is clear,” Olmert told Army Radio, when asked about possible violence at the protest. „There is an attempt here by the demonstrators to create a confrontation. This is an attempt to determine by force the governmental stance of the state of Israel. According to Olmert, the demonstrators have made it „absolutely clear” that their aim in reaching Sderot is not „to voice protest in the context of the legitimate right of expression granted in democratic life. They want to see to it that the disengagement will not be carried out.” „The question is: Is the right to free speech the right to destroy? Is the right to free speech the right to foil a decision which expresses the democratic will?” Major General Uri Bar-Lev, commander of the Southern District Police, met separately Sunday with both MK Effi Eitam (Religious Zionism) and Pinhas Wallerstein of the Yesha Council of settlements, but neither meeting produced an agreement: The police refuse to issue a permit for the demonstration unless organizers promise not to try to march toward Gaza afterward, and the Yesha Council refuses to make this promise. Nevertheless, police officers continued to express hope that in the end, an agreement along these lines will be reached. The officers said they would even be willing to permit the demonstration to last more than a day, but would not compromise over the march to Gaza. If no deal is reached, the police will decide Monday whether to prevent buses of demonstrators from even leaving their towns, as they did for the Kfar Maimon demonstration. The IDF, meanwhile, has assigned some 18,000 soldiers to the task of keeping the demonstrators from reaching Gaza, on top of the thousands of policemen who will be doing the same. Asked if he agreed with keeping protesters from taking buses to Sderot, Olmert replied, „I don’t know – if this is a step that will prevent the entry [of protesters into the Strip], then yes.” Time running out for demonstrators One reason the IDF is more worried about this demonstration than about the previous one is that the disengagement is now only two weeks away, leading right-wing extremists to feel that they have little time left to disrupt the pullout. Moreover, army officers fear that it will be harder to maintain open channels of communication between the police and settler leaders this time, and that these leaders will be less able to impose their will on hard-core activists. Police and army officers expect organizers to try to bring tens of thousands of people to Sderot, and possibly also to Ofakim and the Eshkol Park, where anti-disengagement groups have also applied for permits to hold a protest tomorrow that would end with a march on Gaza. Of these demonstrators, several hundred are expected to try to reach Gaza, probably in small groups equipped with wire cutters to get them through the fence. The army and police successfully blocked similar efforts during the Kfar Maimon demonstration, at which the police arrested some 250 people for attempting to enter Gaza. However, the senior IDF officer noted, the fact that the current demonstration is taking place in a city rather than a fenced-in moshav will make it much harder for the security services to prevent demonstrators from slipping out. PM nixes cabinet debate on protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday rejected Education Minster Limor Livnat’s request to hold a cabinet debate on allowing the Yesha Council to hold the demonstration. Sharon allowed Livnat, however, to voice her position, though he later cut Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu short in his request to speak on the same issue, saying, „we are not holding deliberations on this topic today.” In her request, Livnat – whose parents took part in the Kfar Maimon protest, said, „We are not talking about a technical decision but of a wider matter. We are speaking about the decision to prevent buses from different places in the country from arriving in Sderot in order to voice public protest.” „We are speaking about the balance between democracy and the execution of parliamentary and Knesset decisions,” Livnat said. „Democracy is not just the existence of election, but is also the preservation of the freedom of expression, the freedom of demonstration, and of protest.” BPI-info