Supreme Court keeps leaders of Habayit Haleumi in custody

Two leaders of a right-wing organization opposed to the disengagement plan will remain in custody until the completion of the legal proceedings against them, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The two, Shai Malka and Ariel Wengrover, were indicted for ordering the blocking of roads to protest the pullout plan.

Malka and Wengrover, leaders of Habayit Haleumi (The National Home) were charged in early June with "conspiring to derail the disengagement plan by illegal means."

According to the state prosecution, their actions included organizing the blocking of roads, encouraging soldiers and police personnel to refuse orders and calling for widespread illegal action to paralyze law enforcement authorities.

On the pretext that they only threaten the orderly implementation of the disengagement, the defendants appealled against a district court decision to keep them in custody until August 31. Malka and Wengrover told the Supreme Court their activity did not pose a threat to public safety since it did not cross the boundaries of civil disobedience. They also said their actions were within the limits of freedom of expression and were anchored in their democratic rights.

In an unusually harsh verdict, Supreme Court President Justice Aharon Barak rejected the defendants' appeal, saying: "A democracy should not facilitate its own demise by exercising tolerance."

Barak added that Israel was a young democracy with democratic roots that did not run very deep. "If we don't watch over it, Israel will not watch over us," Barak ruled.

The justice also said that Israel was a "democracy on the defense: It defends itself from its external enemies. It should protect itself against those rebelling against it from within. This duty is laid upon all of us: All government authorities, all parties and bodies, all judges."