Opinion polls show that many Israelis agree. But Israelis by and large also are weary of politics, polemics and partisanship. Their grass-roots campaigns played a key role in stirring up popular opposition to the agreements, and were a comfortable forum for public appearances by leaders of the Likud Party. Many left-wing Israelis still believe that these rallies created the environment that encouraged Yigal Amir to assassinate Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995. Perhaps this is why Nadia Matar, leader of Women in Green, made sure to stress the nonviolent nature of the new campaign, even as she led chants of the harsh slogans.
Today is just the opening shot of the start of a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience.
Protesters then plunked themselves down in the street a few feet from the gate to Barak's office. Border police and security men looked on from the sides. Loudspeakers, whistles, and party horns did little to amplify the small crowd's voice. For many of the 200,000 settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the possibility that dozens of settlements would be dismantled as part of a withdrawal from 95 per cent of the West Bank is a mortal blow to their ideology. Others oppose the deal for more practical reasons, convinced that ceding the West Bank would only bring violence by implacable Palestinian militants that much closer to Israel's heartland.