Protest against Gaza pullout shrinks

Knesset rejects legislation to delay withdrawal

The Palestinians should be worried about this, but I don’t think they are. The Israelis are going to get out of Gaza, they are going to pull back behind the wall, and that will be it. Separation. There will be no more television images of bulldozed Palestinian homes, no Palestinian kids huddling from Israeli gunfire, etc.

Thousands of Jewish protesters started to head home Wednesday after Israeli authorities blocked their attempt to march into Gaza and join settlers resisting the government’s plan to pull out of the territory.

As the protest wound down, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, rejected a bill in a 69-41 vote that would have delayed the disengagement plan by three months. There were two abstentions.

The Knesset has two other bills to consider that would delay the pullout, which is scheduled for mid-August.

The plan calls for the withdrawal of about 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza and four small areas of the West Bank, along with Israeli troops deployed to protect them.

Protest organizers had sought to influence the Knesset’s vote with the demonstrations.

Several thousand demonstrators boarded buses provided by the Israeli government to go back home after protest leaders said they would halt attempts to march from the southern Israeli farming village of Kfar Maimon to the Kissufim Crossing, which leads to Jewish settlements at Gush Katif in Gaza.

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