Residents of Golan town worry Netanyahu visit will spoil mango harvest

Some 100 residents of a northern town where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to vacation next week with his wife penned a letter to authorities on Friday urging them not to allow security protocols to harm their livelihoods at the peak of the tourist season.

The letter from residents of Ramot, in the Golan Heights, was issued hours after the prime minister’s security detail erected a series of checkpoints as well as a fence around the open fields that are part of the resort town, in an apparent bid to shield the premier from protesters who picketed the Netanyahu family during their stay at another resort town in northern Israel this week.

“With all due respect to the prime minister’s vacation plans, we will not agree to any damage to the agricultural and tourism businesses in the moshav and will act against it in every possible legal way,” the Friday letter stated.

Ramot resident Yaakov Eshkol told Walla that authorities have yet to inform locals how the Netanyahus’ vacation will impact them.

“There is a serious fear of damage to tourism and agriculture, which are the two legs on which Moshav Ramot stands. Based off what happened in Neve Ativ, we have good reasons for concern.”

The fence erected Friday appears to block the town from its mango farms, which are Ramot’s main crop, just as they were readying to harvest them.

“We wait for this harvest all year… Any postponement of the harvest, especially in this heat, could cause severe financial harm,” Ramot resident Sion Gonen told the Walla news site.

Yigal Kipnis, a farmer from an adjacent town, told Walla that he needs to be able to transport the mangos to Ramot’s packing plant and wouldn’t be able to do so because of the security arrangements.

Gonen also noted that the town had already booked all of its guest rooms for the weekend and was worried that the security protocols would impact vacationers’ experiences.

In nearby Neve Ativ, locals complained of being placed under siege due to the intense security protocols put in place in order to protect the premier and his wife Sara.

Unlike Neve Ativ’s Panda Hotel, which is located in the center of the moshav, Ramot’s guest suites are in a separate part of the community, meaning residents may be less affected when the Netanyahus visit.

Eshkol predicted that large numbers of anti-overhaul activists would try to converge on Ramot when the Netanyahus arrive.

As they have when other ministers make appearances across the country, activists against the judicial overhaul descended on Neve Ativ to demonstrate against Netanyahu last week.

Police decided to close off the entrance to the community, only allowing in residents and hotel guests, leading to pushback from activists who claimed that their right to protest was being infringed.

They petitioned the High Court of Justice to intervene on their behalf. The court responded on Thursday, indicating that police mishandled the demonstrations but dismissed the case because protesters were eventually allowed to enter the premises of the moshav following a two-day standoff.

Meanwhile, on Friday, a security guard for Netanyahu’s motorcade pushed a protester to the floor as he approached the vehicles with a flag on Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street.

Video of the incident showed the guard shove the man, who fell backward as the guard screamed at bystanders to “keep away!”

ממש לפני כמה רגעים, ברחוב דיזנגוף מאבטח של שיירת ראש הממשלה מטיח מפגין עם דגל ישראל על הקרקע ושובר את ידו.המפגין בדרך לאיכילוב pic.twitter.com/HecwFrCCrT

— לירי בורק שביט (@lirishavit) August 11, 2023

Activists said the man later went to the hospital amid concerns his hand had been broken by the fall.