Police has refused to allow two Jewish-Arab protests against war in Gaza, scheduled to take place on Thursday at Habima Square sponsored by Standing Together in Tel-Aviv and Saturday in Haifa by Hadash and The Peace Partnership, claiming that it “could lead to violence and disturbance of the peace.” Organizers, who planned on rallying under the banner “Only peace will bring security” in Tel-Aviv and “Stop the War” in Haifa, vowed to appeal the decision in the Supreme Court.
Hadash and Communist Party of Israel activists, among them MK Ofer Cassif, during a protest held in Tel-Aviv against the war in Gaza, Saturday night, January 6, 2024 (Photo: Zo Haderech)
Commissioner Danny Levy, commander of the Hof district of the police, decided Thursday not to approve the Hadash movement’s request to hold a protest demonstration against war planned for this coming Saturday night, in the German Colony neighborhood of Haifa.
The Peace Partnership, a broad coalition of Hadash and dozens of organizations, movements, groups and parties, invitation to the protest says: “We join hands and call for an immediate ceasefire, for the sake of both nations. We require: An immediate agreement to end the war, the release of the kidnapped and incarcerated – an ‘all for all deal,’ promoting a political solution that will lead to an inclusive, stable and all-encompassing peace, stopping the racist and political persecution and promotion of national and civil equality and an end to the dispossession of weakened, excluded and marginalized populations – the first to suffer from the consequences of war.” “We say enough is enough!”
On Wednesday, racist National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has been banned by the High Court of Justice, from issuing operational orders to the police concerning their handling of demonstrations and the use of force during protests. Justice Uzi Vogelman, the interim Supreme Court president, stated that today’s decision comes after the court determined that Ben-Gvir had violated a ruling in March in which he was not permitted to issue orders to police protests.
The recent decision was further prompted by a petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, following a tweet in which he claimed to have directed the police to prevent a demonstration organized by Hadash, focused on opposing the continuation of Israel’s war in Gaza. The Movement for Quality Government, one of the petitioners in the case, asserted: “Israel Police is not political police, and Ben-Gvir can’t take control of them and manage them as if they were [his racist party] Otzma Yehudit’s police.”
Additionally, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara informed the High Court that Ben-Gvir had “overstepped the bounds” of his authority to establish general policy, and was inappropriately intruding into the professional discretion of the police. The High Court ruled that Ben-Gvir “must refrain from giving operational instructions and instructions to the police regarding the implementation of his policy regarding the exercise of the right to demonstration and freedom of protest.”
Mass protests have been taking place last weeks around Israel, with demonstrators calling for the removal of far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, an end to the war on Gaza and the return of the kidnapped Israelis held there.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=31516
