Traffic disruptions spread across Israel as ultra-Orthodox protest military draft

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ultra-Orthodox protests

Demonstrators objected to the police response to arrests linked to draft enforcement.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Ultra-Orthodox protesters disrupted traffic across Israel on Wednesday with slow-moving vehicle convoys and road blockages as demonstrations intensified against the military draft of yeshiva students.

The protests began in the afternoon from dozens of locations, with organizers seeking to reach Military Prison 10 near Kfar Yona, which has become a focal point for demonstrations involving detained ultra-Orthodox draft resisters.

Police deployed to prevent protesters from reaching the facility and said demonstrators abandoned vehicles and entered traffic lanes on a highway. Heavy traffic congestion was reported on major roads nationwide.

Reuters images showed ultra-Orthodox protesters on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway near Abu Ghosh, where convoys moved along routes in an effort to block traffic.

Several ultra-Orthodox lawmakers participated in the demonstrations, including United Torah Judaism MK Yitshak Goldknop and Shas MK Michael Malkieli.

Goldknop told Kol Barama radio: “There will come a day when we turn the country upside down.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir also became a target of criticism during the protests.

Demonstrators objected to the police response to arrests linked to draft enforcement, with some carrying signs describing Ben Gvir as the “number 1 enemy of the Jews.”

Confrontations were reported in several locations. In Arad, clashes broke out between secular residents and ultra-Orthodox protesters, leading police and Border Police forces to intervene.

Arad Mayor Yair Maayan urged calm and called on residents to “act with restraint and mutual respect, and to refrain from violent activity among residents.”

Near Kiryat Ono, video footage showed confrontations between protesters and motorists.

In Kfar Yona, authorities restricted access to neighborhoods near Military Prison 10 after residents organized counterdemonstrations. Mayor Albert Taieb said the measures were intended to prevent a recurrence of damage and disturbances reported during an ultra-Orthodox protest the previous week.

The dispute over military service has intensified as Israel confronts wartime manpower demands. While military service is mandatory for most Jewish Israelis, full-time ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students have for generations received exemptions that are now facing growing legal and political challenges.

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IN the summer of 2019, I was seated in the wine cellar of a walled Medieval town high above the Dordogne Valley of France, not far from Sarlat-la-Canéda, making phone calls, writing reports. I have given this story in other places and it appears as though you’re about to hear it again. Rob Skiba is a name you that you might be familiar with. Though he had made a name for himself as a Nephilim researcher, more recently Rob had taken a dive into the deep end of the pool via flat earth research. The recorded interviews I conducted between he and Rick Hummer, a fellow flat earth investigator and close friend of his, was published while still occupying that very wine cellar. Read all about it. Chicago Is Not a Mirage.

Word quickly spread. Within a few short weeks, dozens of flat earth researchers began accepting my invite for a private interview, if not a series of interviews. From a 17th-century tower built by King Louis XIV, and with a stunning view of the Alps, I sat down with Robbie Davidson, founder of the Flat Earth International Conferences, conducting multiple sessions. While staying in Dumfries, Scotland, David Weiss agreed to take part in the interviews, as did Bob Knodel of Globebusters. There were others. But when I asked the interviewees to discuss the moments that shaped their lives, among the many PSYOPs, false flag attacks, and hoaxes that were discussed, only these men committed commentary to the false 9/11 narrative.

The resulting recordings ballooned into The Unexpected Cosmology, a book which became a website and was even intended as an anthology. And of course, the following discourse was originally a chapter. It was Walt Disney who stated, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Those sentiments remain applicable here as well. American Sensationalism: The 9/11 Interviews was always intended to be expanded upon with the inclusion of new researchers. So I’m sorry to say the project became stagnant during the Covid-19 psychodrama. I took a break to tackle other projects. We lost Rob Skiba. Rob offered hours of private conversation regarding his life but we never got around to the big one. 9/11. It was in the cards. Sadly, Bob Knodel died soon afterwards. Voices are being squeezed from an entire generation. Gnosis passes with them.

In the aftermath, the FE community became fractured. People began going their separate ways. Robbie Davidson, among a noted few others who were interviewed for the project, got up and left the movement altogether. It is not my intent to erase his or the contributions of others if only brief. They came, they went, their testimonies remain.

The original vision may have hit roadblocks but it is not forgotten. I expanded this paper a few years later to include testimony from author Pauly Hart, a dear friend of mine. I had wanted to continue that trend every year thereafter but you know how it goes. For the 25th anniversary of the attack I have redirected my efforts to its first large scale expansion, including Andrew Hoy and Darrin Geisinger into the mix. Perhaps others will lend their experiences to the recorder in time.

The following is their report.

Watch the Interviews