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Israeli protesters block entrance to think tank offices with sandbags, barbed wire

“If this isn’t crossing a red line, I don’t know what is.” Six people were arrested.

By World Israel News Staff

Brothers in Arms, a protest group representing reservist soldiers and officers, blocked the entrance of the Kohelet Policy Forum offices in Jerusalem with bags of mortar and barbed wire on Thursday morning.

“The Kohelet Forum is a far-right, nationalist, and messianic organization. They push for a Jewish state that discriminates against women and shrinks democracy to realize their vision of a messianic dictatorship, a dark religious state with apartheid and annexation of the territories,” the protesters claim, as reported by Israel National News.

They shouted ‘Traitor” when Forum director Meir Rubin arrived at the scene.

According to journalist Sara Haetzni-Cohen, My Israel charity organization chairperson, blocking the Kohelet Forum’s offices crosses a red line, Israel National News reported.

“These violent barbarians came to Kohelet’s offices with their faces covered so that no one would recognize them, of course.

“At the Kohelet Forum this morning, there was a young woman working on a research project and as they yelled at her to leave (what were you thinking of doing to her, you bunch of anarchists?); they blocked the entrance with sacks of mortar and barbed wire.

“If this isn’t crossing a red line, I don’t know what is,” Haetzni-Cohen said.

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Six people were arrested.

Thursday marked the second weekly “Day of Disruption” in Israel, with tens of thousands of protesters against the government’s planned reforms to Israel’s judicial system blocking major highways, thoroughfares and junctions. They also intended to block Ben-Gurion Airport to prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from flying out on a state visit to Italy, but the premier managed to reach the airport via helicopter.

Prof. Moshe Koppel, chairman of Kohelet, is one of the architects of the judicial reform program. In conversation with JNS last week, he explained that contrary to the claims of its opponents, who say that it will strip Israel of its checks and balances, judicial reform would restore the checks and balances that have been stripped away by a court system that has arrogated powers beyond its purview.

In New York City, a group of protesters demonstrated in front of the offices of the conservative Tikvah Fund, yelling “Shame” because of its support for Kohelet.