Several hundreds protested on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and carried red flags and banners reading, “No social justice without and end to occupation” and “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies.” They called on the government to withdraw from the Palestinian lands that it has occupied for decades.
The demonstrators marched from the Ministry of Defense to Jabotinsky House, the headquarters of the ruling Likud party, carrying placards saying “Two states – Palestine alongside Israel”. A Handful extreme right-wingers demonstrated in front of them in a counter-demonstration, calling for keeping “Eretz Israel to Jews”.
MK Dov Khenin: “No social justice without end to occupation” (Photo: Hadash)
MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) a leading member of the Communist Party of Israel, which organized the rally, said Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian lands is “dangerous, malign and expensive.” “The immense sum of money invested in building and securing the settlements and constructing apartheid walls, means less to welfare and education,” Khenin said.
“Over the years, Israel did everything to prove that it isn’t interested in peace,” said Ma’ayan Dak, a leader of Coalition of Women for Peace and another organizer of the rally. Dak said the ongoing Israeli control over the West Bank involves “many financial interests of companies which are involved in the construction of the settlements, building separation walls, operating the checkpoints, so Israel have no incentive to cease the occupation.”
After the rally against occupation, some 400 people marched through Tel Aviv on Saturday night to protest the cost of living and the increase in VAT, among them: MK Khenin and Hadash and Communist Party of Israel activists. Protesters, that started marching from Tel Aviv Museum, called out “the people are against VAT.” “There is no future with Lapid and Bibi,” the protesters chanted while waving signs reading “Bibi is good for the rich” and “Yair fled, the poor remained.” In Haifa, some 200 people marched from Linn Square in Kiryat Eliezer to Bat Galim neighborhood in the city to protest the VAT hike.
