Meretz has established a Secular Activities Committee which
is waging a battle against the "chareidization of Ramat Beit
Shemesh." Chadash, the local newspaper distributed in
Beit Shemesh, reports that a handful of the neighborhood's
secular residents invited MK Ran Cohen of Meretz to visit the
neighborhood "in order to grant humanitarian support and to
save the handful of secular people."
The committee has issued a manifesto among the residents
which says that, "the private battle we are waging is over
the future of our life in this place. With the occupying of
Ramat Beit Shemesh it has become clear that there is a total
change in the aim of the project, which constitutes an ever-
increasing affront to the secular community which purchased
apartments in this neighborhood, and points to the intention
of the Housing Ministry to change the neighborhood's
character."
Ramat Beit Shemesh chareidi activists totally reject these
malicious remarks, made for purely political purposes. "The
residents of the neighborhood know how to differentiate
between those who seek their benefit and those who seek to
wage personal battles on the backs of guileless people," they
say.
