Nationalists protest against Palestine
Nationalists protest against PalestineIsrael news photo: Yoni Kempinski

Dozens of nationalist activists gathered in Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard on Tuesday, in a protest march against the Palestinian Authority’s intention to ask the United Nations to unilaterally recognize a Palestinians state.

Protest organizer Tomer Tal Hacohen told Arutz Sheva the protest was important due to Israel’s existential threat.

“The UN is only 10% of the existential danger and of the pressures that are presently applied on Israel,” he said. “We have a right to live here in dignity. Right now, all the forces are against us and we’re trying to unify the lines so that it will not be an embarrassment to be a rightist and a nationalist and a person who rejects the Palestinian solution of ‘67 lines’.”

Hacohen explained that there was a particular significance in choosing Rothschild Boulevard, which was previously home to the housing protest tents, as the scene of the protest.

“As someone who was on Rothschild Boulevard for a month and a half, I saw all the leftist political groups and the New Israel Fund and Shatil unite here,” he said. “It was very scary to see that these bodies have so much power against Israel and against democracy. Therefore it’s very important to us to be here as well.”

Before the nationalists held their demonstration, Israeli Arabs held another protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in support of the Palestinian state. When the protest’s organizers identified Arutz Sheva’s camera as having arrived to film the goings, they warned participants not to give interviews to “the settlers’ channel.”

One of the participants in the Arab protest was MK Hanin Zoabi, already known for her statements against Israel, despite her being a member of its parliament. Zoabi made sure to make it clear that just as the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are illegitimate in her eyes, so is Arutz Sheva.

“We boycotted your institutions, your communities, everything, and we also boycott you,” she stated emphatically.