Protest leaders in Israel are calling for daily protests in response to police violence

In the aftermath of the attack by the Israeli police on demonstrators in front of the Prime Minister’s house, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the kidnapping of a microphone from an Israeli female protester in New York by a prominent Knesset member from the coalition, the protest leadership announced the government’s plan to overthrow the ruling system and the judiciary, expanding the scope of the demonstrations and turning them into quasi- daily, with a focus on following up ministers and coalition deputies wherever they go.

The protest leaders said that they intend to prevent government officials from appearing in front of the people with democratic masks, and to reveal their true faces as leaders of a dictatorial coup. They focused their threats on Netanyahu, and revealed that they were preparing for him a “full reception” at the conference to be held in Tel Aviv, next Sunday, for the leaders of American Jewish organizations.

Netanyahu decided to cancel his participation. A political source said that Netanyahu made this decision after the intelligence briefed him on the details of the protest plan against him.

The demonstrators had taken to the streets in tens of thousands in Tel Aviv, and in 150 other locations from the north to the south of the country. A violent clash broke out on Saturday evening, during a demonstration in front of Netanyahu’s private villa in the town of Caesarea. Its activists declared that they would not allow Netanyahu to have a relaxing weekend. The police tried to disperse them by force, and at a certain point assaulted them with violent means.

The leaders of the demonstration accused the police chief of committing extraordinary acts of violence, in order to appease Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and get him a promotion. They confirmed that there were about ten wounded, including a protester whose nose was broken. The police arrested 17 demonstrators, and the situation did not calm down until they were released in the early hours of dawn.

One of the activists said that this demonstration developed spontaneously. It began in a place where Prime Minister Netanyahu appeared in Tel Aviv, and then the demonstrators moved to the vicinity of his house in the city of Caesarea, after they learned that he had gone there. According to the demonstrators’ sources, about 300 people participated in the demonstration, during which they blocked Rothschild Street – a main street in the city. They reported that the policemen assaulted them and confiscated the loudspeakers they were using, and the demonstrators, for their part, put stickers on police cars that read: “National Security is a farce.”

In their weekly statement, protest organizers said, “Anyone who has listened to Netanyahu’s delegates, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, and Nuclear Energy Minister, David Amsalem, knows that the Israeli government is striving for dictatorship.” The only thing that can stop their plan to destroy the army, the economy and the relations between Israel and the world are the demonstrators who come out every week.

In Tel Aviv, the “peace bloc” carried out its threat, and went out in a demonstration parallel to the major protest demonstration, which was dedicated to the 56th anniversary of the June 1967 war, in which they raised slogans rejecting the Israeli occupation and settlement policy, and supporting the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. The demonstration started from Dizengoff Square in the city center, with the participation of hundreds of different Jewish and Arab forces opposed to the occupation, and headed to Kaplan Street. Their slogans stood out in a distinctive way, and they raised the Palestinian flag alongside the Israeli flag.

On the other hand, Israeli demonstrators continue to launch demonstrations in the United States, where 7 ministers and 9 deputies from the government coalition appeared to participate in a rally in support of Israel. Israelis were up at 6 a.m. and waiting for Economy Minister Nir Barkat, Israel’s richest politician, who made his fortune in technology and is part of the largest delegation Israel has ever sent to the Israel Day parade in New York.

But the most prominent is a demonstration in New York, which was held spontaneously when Representative Simha Rotman was seen strolling with his wife on a side street near his hotel. Some walked behind him, chanting against him as the deputy who would implement the government’s plan to overthrow the ruling system and the judiciary. At a certain point, he turned back and attacked one of the female demonstrators who was carrying a megaphone and shouting slogans against him, against Netanyahu, and against the plan, and snatched her megaphone from her. The young female protester filed a complaint against him with the police.

Rotman claimed that it was the demonstrators who violently dealt with him, “they stomped on my wife’s feet and shouted to God to take my soul and sand it.” The demonstrators responded that he was “a motorized person who has lost his mind, and revealed that he does not understand or respect democracy.” And they stressed that the violence of the police and political leaders necessitates the expansion of the demonstrations, “and making them more painful.”