Organizers Expect Greater Crowd at Tel Aviv Protest this Weekend
On Saturday night, almost 80,000 people had gathered on the streets of Tel Aviv to protest against the judicial reforms that the new government intends to implement.
A week after the said protest, another one will be slated for the coming weekend against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and its policies.
There will also be smaller protests in Haifa and Jerusalem as well as other locations all over the country. The opposition leader, Yair Lapid, had not attended last week’s protest.
However, he announced on Wednesday that he would make an appearance at this week’s protests.
The new protest
It had been raining during the last protest, but clear weather has been predicted for the new protest this weekend.
Therefore, organizers are hoping that the turnout this week would be larger, as it could be boosted by the bombshell ruling of the High Court this week about Aryeh Deri.
The Shas chief has been declared to be unfit for becoming a government minister and this might draw more people out.
The Tel Aviv protest is going to be divided over two locations. The Movement for Quality Government in Israel is one of the organizers and they have opted to stick to the Habima Square for this weekend as well.
As for other organizers, they will move to the intersection of Begin and Kaplan streets almost half a mile away.
More people
The Movement for Quality Government said that since there was a risk of democracy collapsing in Israel, they wanted to show the government that they would not let it happen quietly.
It added that the protests had been divided because they were expecting a larger turnout this week than the previous one.
It said that the people who had attended the previous protest at Habima Square had just been the beginning and it would continue to grow bigger.
The protest group Black Flags said that their focus would be on Kaplan Street and they also asked opposition leaders to attend.
It said that after Deri’s qualification, the judicial system was under attack as the coalition was planning on disobeying the ruling.
Therefore, Black Flags said that leaders of the opposition parties should attend the protests and demonstrations.
On Thursday, the organizing group said that after the High Court ruling, there had been a rise in interest in the protest’s attendance.
More details
After the ruling from the High Court, the protest group named Crime Minister asked the public to flood the streets of Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa, Modiin and Jerusalem.
Black Flags asserted that they would continue protesting against dictatorship until the government is brought down.
The protest in Tel Aviv is expected to be attended by a number of political leaders, including Lapid. The opposition leader said that they would stop the madness and fight for Israel.
He posted a video on Wednesday on social media in which he called on the people to protest against the destruction of democracy and announced that he would also attend this week.