Thousands rallied in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night, May 28, to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appointment of Israel Beytenu’s racist head, Avigdor Liberman, as Israel’s new defense minister in last week’s coalition shakeup.

Among the participants in Saturday night’s mass demonstration in Tel-Aviv, from left to right in the front line of march: MK Youssef Jabareen (Joint List-Hadash), MK Michal Rozin (Meretz), Meretz leader MK Zehava Galon, Joint List chairman MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash), and the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Israel, Adel Amer; in the second line, center, MK Dov Khenin (Joint List – Hadash) holds a sign aloft: “Building an opposition; building hope.” (Photo: Zu Haderech weekly)

Carrying Red, Palestinian and Israeli flags, protesters marched towards the Tel Aviv Likud party headquarters on King George street chanting: “Liberman  is a  racist and a fascist,” and “Liberman is the minister of war.”  Protesters waved banners denouncing fascism, racism, right wing violence in Israel, and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, along with Hadash signs proclaiming “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies” and “Israel, Palestine, two states for two peoples.”

The rally, organized by Hadash, the Communist Party of Israel, Meretz, the peace movements “Standing Together,” “Combatants for Peace,” and Peace Now, was held under the banner “Building the opposition: A new way for Israel.” The marchers were joined by Hadash and Meretz members of the Knesset, including Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh, Meretz leader Zehava Galon, and several other MKs: Dov Khenin (Joint List – Hadash), Ilan Gil’on (Meretz), Youssef Jabareen (Joint List – Hadash), Abdallah Abu-Ma’arouf (Joint List –Hadash), Michal Rozin (Meretz), Tamar Zandberg (Meretz), former Hadash MKs Tamar Gozansky and Issam Makhoul and Secretary General of the Communist Party of Israel, Adel Amer.

“We believe that only a joint Jewish-Arab effort can be victorious,” Odeh said in Hebrew and Arabic to demonstrators. “We reject the assumption that all Jews hate Arabs and all Arabs hate Jews. This struggle against discrimination and racism must be common one.” Pointing to fascist trends in Israel, Odeh said that the Joint List which he heads “is founding the democratic camp… We are in this struggle together, Jews and Arabs, and we shall triumph… We will offer a real alternative that will be able to topple this far right-wing government.”

Avigdor Liberman, an outspoken racist who has threatened to assassinate Hamas leaders and has called Joint List lawmakers “traitors,” signed a deal bringing his five-member Israel Beytenu party into the coalition on Wednesday, as part of efforts by Netanyahu over many months to expand his wafer-thin 61-seat majority.