Netanyahu mulls limits on demonstrations after politicians attacked

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding discussions regarding the use of public space following a spate of non-peaceful protests in front of politicians’ homes.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has scheduled meetings for Thursday to discuss the possibility of issuing restrictions on public protests, following a string of attacks on public figures during anti-judicial reform demonstrations.

While insisting that they “don’t have a problem with demonstrations” per se, government officials explained that there is a need for a review because there have been “attacks and riots against politicians in the face of incompetence in the system of the rule of law.”

On Tuesday, six protestors were arrested after hundreds gathered to demonstrate in front of Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s Modi’in home, blowing horns, beating drums, burning tires and blocking the entrance to his street with barbed wire. When the first demonstrator was detained, others surrounded the police cars that had arrived and began clashing with officers, leading to the police using pepper spray and physical force to disperse them.

Levin was livid at what he deemed the weak response of the authorities to the incident, saying, “The attorney general and the law enforcement system under her are ignoring the violence, if not winking at the instigators, and allowing the lawlessness to run wild.”

Netanyahu backed his No.2, saying in a Likud statement that “The time has come for the attorney general and Israel Police to act with all their might and determination against lawbreakers, without regard to religion, race, geographic area or political opinion.”

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara was asked to attend the Thursday discussions.

The consultations come on the heels of a protest held early Thursday morning near the house of Minister for the Advancement of the Status of Women May Golan (Likud), in which one of the anti-judicial reform leaders was arrested.

Moran Zer Katzenstein, who heads the Building an Alternative movement was detained while standing with a group of women and ringing handbells loudly on the sidewalk.

She told the press after her release a short time later that she was “proud of all the women who stood in front of the house and didn’t move.” The police, she added, shouldn’t have detained anyone “for ringing a bell” and “they know it.”

Katzenstein dismissed the police warning that she was disturbing public order and taking part in an illegal demonstration.

“There’s no reason to define this protest as ‘illegal,’ we really did everything according to the law, there was no reason to stop us,” she said.

The organization protested afterwards that the police had “refused to allow them their freedom of movement on the street and move about in the public space.”

Labor head MK Merav Michaeli meanwhile called on the police to be “neutral and objective,” adding, “You are not a political police force.”

anti-government protestBenjamin NetanyahuIsrael PoliceYariv Levin