First Succesfull Settlement Activism since Amona - Video of the March to Beit El - Am Yisrael Chai Ve'Kayam

On April 16th over Pesach thousands of marchers braved the closed Wallerstein road between Beit El connecting the Gush Talmonim where the normal route would have been 10 minutes by car because of the blockage it is instead over an hour. Olmert had decided to maintain clear territorial integrity for the Palestinians between Ramallah and Bir Zeit while Jewish travel remains barred there.

Facing police and military blockades the marchers nevertheless continued their approach and the majority succeeded in reaching their destination at Yad Yair, a former demolished outpost, that had been founded in the memory of Yair Mendelsohn who was murdered by terrorists in the early 90's. The police clearly under orders to avoid a repetition of Amona varied their tactics from arguing to harassment to violence. Six people were arrested, three of them girls who were reported to have been struck after being taken inside police vans.

The official media reports have of course produced the usual propaganda accusing the settlers of violence and claiming the march had failed. But led by Daniella Weiss, the Mayor of Kedumim, who has broken from the useless and government lackeys of the Yesha Council, and has in turn been cut off from funding; the march succeeded where much larger groupings failed because of honest leadership that did not negotiate with the police and broke the marchers into small groups to which the police responded by also breaking up into small groups that thinned their presence and position. It is also a demonstration of what could have been done at Gush Katif under a leadership determined to do more than chant slogans and shout their love for the army but engage in real activism.

This is the leadership, the initiative and organization that is badly needed if the ethnic cleansing of Yehuda and the Shomron is to be prevented.