Tens of thousands protest in Tel Aviv along with the Druze against the recently passed Nation-State Law. (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/ MAARIV)
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“We want equality!” chanted tens of thousands of people at a demonstration organized by Israel’s Druze community in protest of the Nation-State Law at Tel Aviv´s Rabin Square on Saturday night.
The square was a sea of Druze and Israeli flags, and the announcer told anyone else waving political party flags to put them down. Protesters also displayed pictures of Druze soldiers who fell in their service for the state of Israel.
The demonstration is in response to the controversial Nation-State law, which protesters view as a violation of the rights of some groups, including the Druze and Arab minorities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to cancel the protest in a meeting with Druze leaders, with no success.
Protests were also held in Arab towns across the country, including Sachnin, Majd al-Krum, Baka, Tira, Rahat, Jaljulia, Kfar Kana and Wadi Ara, and Jews and Arabs protested together in Haifa.
Earlier in the day, the UN High Commissioner for Minority Rights Dr Fernand de Varennes announced that an investigation had been opened following a complaint filed by the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab citizens of Israel, an extra-parliamentary umbrella organization that represents Arab citizens of Israel.
The complaint was filed by Arab MK Youssef Jabareen (Joint List), and outlines what the committee perceives to be racist sections of the law, “the denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, the violation of the Arabic language and the Arab population’s right to equality as a national minority with collective, cultural linguistic and religious rights.”
The committee seeks to rally various UN bodies and EU institutions to pressure the Israeli government to repeal the law.
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The demonstration opened with the Mayor of Daliat El Carmel Rafik Halabi, host of the event, stating, “I thank the Druze, the Chercez, and the Tel Avivians who filled out Rabin Square and the surrounding streets.”
Sheik Mowafaq Tarif, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, said: “Nobody can teach us what sacrifice is, and noone can teach us about loyalty.. our full graveyards are a testimony to that. Despite our loyalty, the state did not see us as equals. We identify with the Declaration of Independence and last Independence Day, I was moved to light a torch…”
“Members of the Druze community feel, and rightly so, that they are taking away our Israeliness. We are Israelis, we are brothers.”
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai said, “Until the Nation-State Law, Israel was Jewish and democratic… The law in its current form does not see all its citizens as equal and empties the concept of Israeliness.”
“We call on you to fight with us so that Israel will continue to be democratic and Jewish. I call on you, on all of us, to cancel or to change the basic law that leaves the other out of the circle and to remove this ugly stain from the face of our state of Israel.”
“We are ready to hold a dialogue with every party in the government in order to resolve the issue and for the future of our children,” said Brig. Gen. (res.) Amal Asad, who accused Netanyahu of turning Israel into an “apartheid state” in a Facebook post. The comment reportedly caused Netanyahu to abruptly cancel Thursday’s meeting with him and other Druze leaders.
“From this demonstration in which hands and hearts joined together, we are going toward many more years of shared life in the state of Israel, in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence,” Asad said.
Meanwhile, dozens of protesters demonstrated against the Nation-State Law Saturday night in front of Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon’s house in Haifa.
Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman said that Kahlon and his Kulanu MKs voted for a racist bill that marks a fifth of the population as inferior and legitimizes discrimination in a Basic Law. She said he cannot expect to receive Arab votes in the next election after that.
“We must remember that he and his party stood shoulder to shoulder with the extreme Right to remove us from the circle of equal citizens,” she said. “We will not be citizens only on Election Day. Kahlon, we will judge you and your hypocrisy.”
Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.
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