Anti-government protesters gather at Habima Square in Tel Aviv,
Speaking to hundreds of anti-government protesters at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon calls the affidavit in which incumbent head Ronen Bar submitted to the High Court against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week a “pivotal event in our fight for the Jewish-democratic identity of Israel.”
If the premier uses the agency to “carry out surveillance of citizens who wish to protest — the black flag is flown before our eyes,” says Ayalon, referring to one of Bar’s accusations against the premier in the document.
In Israeli jurisprudence, a “black flag” is said to fly over orders whose sheer immorality makes them illegal to follow. The phrase was coined by the judge who, in 1957, handed down the prison sentences of the soldiers who killed 49 civilians in the Arab town of Kafr Qasim for missing a curfew.
“Take to the streets, stop the country,” says Ayalon. “Non-violent civilian revolt is the civic duty of every citizen.”
“We are fighting for Israel’s Jewish-democratic identity as formulated by the founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence,” he says.
Prominent activist Shikma Bressler, speaking later, tells the crowd that “a black flag flies over” all of Netanyahu’s decisions.
Former IDF chief Dan Halutz says Netanyahu is continuing the fighting in Gaza simply to keep the government intact.
The war is “unnecessary” and driven by Netanyahu’s coalition partners’ “religious, mystic, messianic delusions that have nothing to do with national security,” says Halutz.
He adds that “the defendant Benjamin Netanyahu,” who is on trial for corruption charges, poses a “clear, present and immediate danger to the state of Israel.”
The crowd at Habima is awash in Israeli flags. Ahead of the speeches, organizers play on a large screen a brief history of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who began his political life as a disciple of extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, and an avowed fan of Kahane’s disciple Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patroarchs in Hebron in 1994.
The short film accused Netanyahu of normalizing the Kahanist movement four decades after the High Court blocked it from running for parliament.
After the speeches, the crowd is set to march to the anti-government hostage families’ protest outside the IDF headquarters on Begin Road.
