"The Human Chain" (Hebrew: Ha-Sharsheret Ha-Enosheet; השרשרת האנושית) is the name Israeli Gaza Strip and West Bank settlers (or their PR advisors) chose for a massive anti-Disengagement demonstration that took place on July 25, 2004.
130,000 settlers and right-wing activists (200,000, if you believe the settlers' claims), holding hands, formed a chain* stretching from the Western Wall in Jerusalem to a settlement in Gush Qatif/Gaza Strip, protesting that "expelling Jews from Gush Qatif means tearing the proverbial chain of the spinal cord of Israeli society, in terms of security, democracy, society, culture, morality, and Judaism".
(*) Security considerations led the police to disallow a certain segment of the chain along a main road, so there they stood in large groups at junctions instead.
The event received extensive media coverage the entire day, and is generally considered a success.
<rant political="yes" objective="not-really">
OK, so it was a brilliant PR stunt, and it looked great from the air (although not everybody really held hands). But what the heck are those settlers thinking? They are leading a purely emotional campaign, and are in fact now planning to go from door to door and convince people that Sharon's disengagement plan is evil (let it be noted that Sharon's people are doing absolutely nothing).
They are essentially saying that logic cannot be applied to their argument (you have to feel it, you know?...) - Doesn't that logically invalidate their point? And more importantly - why are people falling for it?
The day they manage to pull it off and stop the disengagement plan, I'm getting my one-way ticket out of here. I hear the UK's nice.
</rant>
Update - Hands Across America has been mentioned. I quote from that node: "The goal was to raise money to fight hunger all over the world". World hunger, now there's a noble cause. Other similar events around the world were also about peace and suchlike. I'd like to stress that this particular demonstration stands in contrast to those events in that, underneath all the very-emotionally-territorial slogans and attractive packaging, it was a protest against peace and security and in favor of continued war and occupation. Draw your own conclusions.