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Settlers From Human Chain around Knesset
 
 
 

Among the speakers were former chief rabbis Mordechai Eliahu and Avraham Shapira.

"May the plan be ruined and nullified," said Shapira, who last week created a media storm when he said religious soldiers should refuse orders to evacuate settlements.

Now he said God had given this land to the Jews. "We are not disconnecting from the land. We are connected to it."

He read with the crowd Yom Kippur prayers to the sound of shofar blasts. When he finished speaking, the audience burst into song and dance with the help of a band.

Many of the signs touted the Gush Katif slogan, "We have love and it will win out." One woman was dressed as the Statute of Liberty. A large sign off to the side said, "Sharon is a traitor."

While protesters formed first a human chain and then a chain of honking cars around the Knesset, a smaller group remained in the garden to listen to speeches from rabbis and to recite psalms.

Protesters said they did not expect to influence Tuesday night's Knesset vote on disengagement, but instead were hoping to make the point that only a national referendum should determine the fate of Gush Katif and northern Samaria. In the weeks that follow they plan to push for a referendum or early elections.

Holding her small daughter on her lap, Alisa Segal said that should the MKs vote against them, it will only mean that "we have a lot more work to do to convince the nation."

Josh Hasten, a spokesman for the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, said the vote on disengagement does not address the removal of settlements, so there is a window of time to work for a national referendum and early elections.

Avigail Ariel, a mother of four from Gush Katif, said it is the nation's fate, not that of her own family, that worries her.

"It's security that concerns me. I'm afraid that the violence we face now is child's play compared to what will happen if we evacuate the land."

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