"No, we will absolutely not move aside. We have been demonstrating on this sidewalk, opposite the Defence Ministry gates, for more than twenty years – since the time of the First Lebanon War, You are not going to change the rules suddenly!" said activists of various peace groups in an angry exchange of words with the police, as the beginning of the protest against the settler pogrom in Hebron on Saturday night. The police tried to push demonstrators away from the sidewalk and move them to a plot of grass far from the street.

Within a few minutes after 7pm the debate was decided when hundreds of demonstrators streamed in. Peace-minded Israelis had been shocked and angered by the scenes of settlers indiscriminately attacking and burning Palestinian homes in "retaliation" for being evacuated under a court order by the army from a single house, and even shooting Palestinians at point blank range; news of the scheduled demonstration had spread quickly. The mass of arriving demonstrators ignored the police directives and spread along the sidewalk for a long distance on both sides of the Defence Ministry gates, with the police contenting itself in placing fences separating them from the road. A young woman, wearing a Peace Now t-shirt, was dragged by policemen and pushed by force onto the sidewalk, her fellows crying out "Police State! Police State!"

The demonstration had been organized in parallel by Peace Now and the (more radical) Peace Coalition, each one of which had mobilized several hundred participants. Demonstrators waved towards the ministry gates signs reading: "Hebron is burning on Barak's head", "The settler criminals and their rabbis – to prison!", "Evacuate Hebron Now!!!", "Stop settler terrorism", "Right wing violence is a dangerous plague", "Down with the occupation!", "Stop the Hebron pogrom!", "Army and Settlers out of Hebron", "No to Apartheid!", "Settler Council – criminal council", "Stop the lawlessness – evacuate Hebron", "Israel and Palestine, two states for two peoples", "Down with the occupation", "Get out of Hebron - Now!", "Dismantle the settlements, evacuate the settlers", "Hebron settlers – a bone stuck in the country's throat", "Your money pays for settler terror".

"Stop the settlerrorist gangs' pogrom in Hebron" read the sign held aloft by an older activist, each and every letter very neatly drawn – evidently, preparing it had taken hours. "Settlement is a war crime" read the sign of Gideon Spiro, who a few weeks ago went from Cyprus to Gaza in a siege-busting boat and was detained on his return.

Benny Gefen, a veteran activist whose soldier son had been killed in Lebanon, held a long sign which he had made himself: "The Yitzhar settlers have cut down or burned 10,000 olive trees in the village of Burin. The IDF's support for the settler pogromists is evil, a folly and a crime". At the corner of the sign appeared a photo of Gefen and another activist near the burned remnants of an olive tree with the caption: "Here stood an ancient olive tree for hundreds of years, until the Yitzhar settlers destroyed it".

A group of activists from Jaffa had the sign "No to settlement – in Hebron and in Jaffa", referring to the recent arrival of a group of West Bank settlers to establish a religious boarding school (Yeshiva) in the midst of Jaffa's last remaining Arab neighbourhood, with the proclaimed intention of "Juadaizing" Jaffa. Gush Shalom activists held aloft the "Two-Flags Flag", comprising the linked flags of Israel and Palestine, and ditsributed to by-passers stickers reading "I have no settler for a brother" and "There is no such thing as a legal settlement". A group of Italian and British activists stood with the European Peace Flag (Rainbow Colours and the word "Pace", Italian for "Peace".

Chanting was accompanied by the ceaseless rhythm of a dozen drums: "rat, tat, tat – Stop the Occupation! rat, tat, tat – Stop the Occupation! rat, tat, tat – Stop the Occupation!" with young activists jumping high in the air to the same rhythm. Every minute a new chant was added: "Dismantle/the evil settler council!", "Fight the racists/dismantle the outposts", "The Rampaging Rightists/Endanger all of us", "Finance the slums/Not the settlements", "Dismantle the settlements/Build up the health service", "Remove the settlers/Provide more wheel-chairs", "Jews and Arabs/Refuse to be enemies", "Jews and Arabs/Together fight the racists", "Extreme Right on the rise/ This is the time to organize!", "Occupation is the problem/Peace is the solution!", "No to settlement!/Yes to peace!", "No Occupation, no terror/remove the settler horror", "Mass struggle, pulverize/The settler enterprize", "From settlement chains/Liberate the Hebronites", "Racist settlement/Murderously violent", "Stop the shame/Don’t play the settler game", "Barak Barak hey hey hey/When will you block the settlers' way?", ""Barak Barak, hey hey hey/Hebron removal, on which day?", "Settler villas – No! Slum renovation – Yes!", "Settlement is a crime/Settler council is a Mafia", "Neither settlers not soldiers/Evacuate Hebron, no leftovers!", "One, Two, Three, Four/Settlements will be no more".

After nearly two hours of protest, former KM Mossi Raz took up the loud-speaker for a few concluding words: "Mr. Defence Minster Barak, you who will not be a defence minister for much longer – this is your last chance, and perhaps the country's last chance. The struggle is not about one house in Hebron, it is about pogromist gangs which have gone out of anybody's control – even the control of the parents, teachers and rabbis who brought them up. Mr. Barak, this is your last chance to break up the settler rebellion, the gravest threat to our future!"

At the conclusion, several activists managed to hang a "Down With the Occupation" sign on the back of police patrol car. The car started moving with the sign still hanging, when the policemen inside –apparently alerted by the other cars – stopped, rushed out of the car to threw away the sign.

Peace Coalition: Gush Shalom, Women's Coalition for Peace, ICAHD, Yesh Gvul, AIC, Student Coalition of TA University - acting together with Peace Now.