One of the activists that were called over brought a history book, out of which he started reading out loud the names of villages demolished by the Nakba, on which the city of Tel Aviv was built. Policemen warned him that if he keeps on reading he will be arrested. After a moment or two they fulfilled this threat. As he was dragged to the police van he kept on reading. "Shayka Muwannis, Abu Kabir, Salama...." The reading continued, though, from the cards held by those inside the blockade, one by one the names were read, repeated by everybody "Ijlil Shamalyyia, Sawalima, Yazur..." When a couple of dozens were reading out the names the cops stood helpless.
As we were getting away, we were approached by several drunken Kahanists, who first swore, then started singing racist songs, and chanting "Death to Arabs, death to Arabs" , and concluded with threats such as "if there were no cops around I'd kill you". The cops around, somehow failed to hear these threats, although at some point one of them had a friendly chat with one of those Kahanists, after which he returned to harass us. We walked away in big groups, with some of them following us for a while, but they fell back as we refused to oblige them in a shouting match.
Before I conclude, I should note that last week dozens of international activists got arrested for saying the word Palestine in Israeli airport. This week 3 activists got arrested, and a dozen more spent several hours in an iron cage for daring to mention the Nakba. In both case the Israeli thought police deemed the arrestees provocateurs. Once again, it seems like the thing most threatening to the Israeli regime, are peaceful activists, using the words which it tries to erase. A regime based on lies, can't help but being threatened by the those who dare speak out the truth.