3,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Tel Aviv Saturday night, December 19, to protest right-wing provocations against human rights and peace activists. Organizers gave the protest the title: “Standing together against a government that incites instead of offering solutions; against the far-right’s attempts to silence and intimidate, from inside the government and from without.”
The demonstration last Saturday night, December 19, in front of the Likud headquarters in central Tel-Aviv (Photo: Al Ittihad)
The invitation to the rally read: “The extreme right-wing government incites because it has nothing to offer. They incite because they are the ones guilty for the lack of security and the social distress, because it is their policy that has led to a dramatic increase in poverty; because they have no solutions that will ensure a life of personal security for all citizens. And from this failure, we all suffer: men and women, young and old, Arabs and Jews, religious, Mizrahi, Russian speakers and those who live in peripheral areas. The Politics of ‘forever live by the sword’ will result in the sword’s being turned against the people. The instigators who led to Rabin’s murder incite today against Arabs, against the human rights organizations, against the peace movement. The incitement extends to anyone who dares express a different opinion, up to the Israeli President himself. We, Arabs and Jews, stand together against the attempts to silence and intimidate by the extreme right-wing forces inside the government and from without. We stand together against racism and hatred and for equality and coexistence. We stand together to put an end to war and the occupation through a just peace and independence for both peoples. In the face of a government that chooses to incite instead of offering solutions – we will not be silent, we stand together.”
The protest began outside the Likud Party headquarters, Metzudat Ze’ev – “because the hands may be those of Im Tirzu, but the voice is that of Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet ministers,” charged Prof. Dani Filc, from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The protest marched from there to the memorial to the assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at Rabin Square.
Im Tirtzu, a right-wing advocacy group, has faced a torrent of public criticism, over a video clip it released last week targeting prominent human rights and peace activists. The video showed a Palestinian terrorist stabbing the viewer, and charged four leaders of left-wing groups with aiding the terrorist through their activism, referring to them as foreign agents, “moles,” due to their groups’ receiving funds from various European governments and the EU. The video was produced by the advertising magnate Moshe Klughaft, who also serves as a senior adviser for Education Minister Naftali Bennett and ran his Jewish Home party’s election campaign earlier this year.
“Incitement is the last bastion of a failure,” charged Joint List MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) in a speech he gave during the rally. “This extremist-right government, which is leading us to a dead end in all directions, is trying to place the blame for that on the left.” A smaller counter-protest of some 20 far-right activists took place across the street in Rabin square.
Related:
Fascistic Group Incites Violence against Human Rights Activists
