#Erev Yom Kippur 24.9.2023

[nataliesnews]

Erev Yom Kippur 24.9.2023

....Yesterday at Sheik Jarrah was one of the most  violent demonstrations I have seen there. At Balfour I saw violence but this was in a very concentrated period and I was right next to it.  I have often seen police violence but today at Sheikh Jarrah was the worst in a long time. As we walked from the car, I said to Varda  about the police  "You can see that they are gearing up to attack ''" and before we got there, a whole pack of them descended into the crowd to grab a Palestinian flag which someone had painted on a piece of cardboard. There were more police there than had been for a long time and also a bunch of gorillas in plain clothes. You could see by their body language that they were looking for any excuse to attack. And they did. 

I saw them throwing down two women to the ground.

 But I was careful not to get caught up in one of the attacks . But  what happens is that suddenly the police decided to attack one person in particular and go into the crowd like bulldozers pushing anyone aside or to the ground who they think are in their way ,. and one of my friends was  pushed by them as they tried to get past to get a flag and knocked her head badly on a boulder. When the police came past and we were helping her you could see the happy smiles on their faces. .When I saw the surge was coming towards me, I got into a sort of niche and a Palestinian stood before me but they did not reach us.

When I looked at the police and their undercover provocateurs, I had  this horrible thought. That I could see them in the SS.

We have Jews who want to build the third temple. The Germans wanted to build the Third Reich. Is this what we have become?

I have to keep looking at this placard which someone sent. The day of memory and Holocaust day.  And then I think but what sort of Israel will I leave behind me. 

At the one place next to a Palestinian house there is a stone bench on which I can sit and suddenly a guy came up to me and handed me spectacles. I thought someone must have dropped them so I tried to put them somewhere safe in my rucksack but afterwards he came and told me that they were  his and I was the safest place he could leave them. Only thing is afterwards I saw the police charging into the crowd where he was although he did not have a sign or anything and grabbed him, throwing him to the floor and I think they arrested him...for no reason whatsoever. I don't know what happened to his glasses. I always wear an old pair when I go to a demo. 

See the video below. The guy in the green is the one who asked me to look after his glasses. But it will also show you the violence of the police

Last night at the Saturday demonstration I sat next to a 89 year old woman who said that even in 1948 things had not been so bad. I am so sick at all that is happening here. I don't understand how all these settlers and people on the right who support the assassin, Yigal Amir, and the murdered of the family at Doma can go to shul to repent. 

These are two of the signs last night...the one saying that our young men should not be serving in the occupied areas and another a little girl who sat in the road chalking the sign which said, "I have love and it will win." I wish I could be so sure.  

I keep thinking back to the siren going off 50 years ago/  I was with friends in Tel Aviv and we were so sure it was a glitch. In fact Elisheva had just said that she was going to warm the lunch (we don't fast) and being Yom Kippur, I said to her, "Eli. I think God must have heard you"  Only when we came out of the front door and all the neighbours were down there and they said to us that we were at war did we realise what was happening. Don't forget that being Yom Kippur no one thought of putting on a radio. My friend said.,"I forgot to do the washing." and her husband said to her, "Don't be a damn fool. By night we could be refugees" 

#Erev Yom Kippur 24.9.2023