Two weeks ago we wrote Minister Gilad Erdan, who is in charge of Defense of the Environment, and we asked him to use his authority and issue a warrant forbidding the night flights over Modiin. We also invited Minister Erdan to make a brief visit to Modiin at night.
As you recall, The Supreme court has instructed Minister Gilad Erdan to respond by the end of November and to provide reasoning why he does not issue such a warrant.
We’ve been also in contact with Yossi Hazai, advisor to Gilad Erdan, who stated that the minister is planning to visit Modiin at night to gain personal insight to the noise levels that the flights are generating. Hazai also stated that per recent noise level measurements, some 25-30% of the flights over Modiin exceed the 75 Decibel threshold, yet the head of the Noise and Radiation Branch at the ministry of the Defense of the Environment does not deem this to be unacceptable noise levels.
Given that Minister Erdan has not taken yet the action we hope for, and given that our window of opportunity to exert public pressure on Minister Erdan will run out at the end of the month, we are organizing public pressure next week that will peek with a mass protest on Friday, November 26th.
Like in the successful protest of July 2009, we plan to convene starting at 8:00AM the parking lot in front of the Modiin Municipality and head out by 8:30AM to a destination that will be decided over the next few days. We will plan the protest so as to enable the participants to get to the children schools and pick them up by 11:45AM.
We are requesting that you confirm your plan to participate in this rally via email to pla...@modiin.us, so that we can assure the protest is a success. Please state your mobile phone and the number of participants who will attend.
We also seek volunteers who can help with hanging flyers in entrances to homes, putting up posters, making phone calls (in Hebrew), assist in directing people during the day of the rally, contribute financially, etc. If you are willing to assist, please email us at pla...@modiin.us.
We will also hold a campaign early next week to flood the office of Gilad Erdan with your phone calls, emails and faxes. We will address this in detail in a separate email in the beginning of next week.
Please also pass this message on to your neighbors in Modiin and share the link to our Website post on your Facebook page.
For more details please see the post on our Hebrew Website.