Few show up for pro-disengagement march

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By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
July 25, 2005

Further highlighting waning public support for ?disengagement,? a march designed to demonstrate popular backing for the internationally-supported plan managed to attract only 300 Israelis Sunday.

The paltry crowd gathered in the northern Israel village of Tel Chai to conclude the first leg of a week-long march slated to end Friday in central Jerusalem.

They were marching under the banner ?Leaving Gaza, Returning to Zionism?. Just how Jews withdrawing from historically Jewish lands under Arab fire can be viewed as Zionistic was unclear.

The march is a left-wing reaction to an initiative carried out last week by opponents of the plan to forcibly uproot 10,000 Jews from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria.

An estimated 100,000 Israelis were prepared to take part in that ?Zero Hour? march to southern Gaza, before police, in an unprecedented move, prevented hundreds of buses filled with anti-pullout activists from departing from locations around the country.

Up to 40,000 Israelis still managed to reach the western Negev town of Kfar Maimon to voice their condemnation of the plan to expel Jews from parts of the Land of Israel.

Late last week, a new public opinion poll on disengagement showed less than 50 percent of Israelis support the plan, the lowest figure yet since its announcement by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February 2004.

According to the researchers who conducted the survey, support for the plan would have dropped even further if Israelis believed there was an alternative to quitting Gaza and Samaria.

While alternatives do exist, international pressure on the Jewish state keeps it from putting a final end to the Arab threat against it.

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