Dozens of activists protested on Tuesday evening against an alternative Memorial Day ceremony held by the leftist organization Combatants for Peace at the Tel Aviv port area.
The group’s alternative ceremony includes Israeli bereaved parents and Palestinian Authority Arab bereaved parents (parents of terrorists who were killed while fighting IDF soldiers) under the same category of remembrance and loss.
On Sunday, one of the protest organizers, Nissim Eliyahu, sharply criticized the alternative ceremony and told Arutz Sheva that it is in fact a political event under the guise of a memorial event.
Combatants for Peace’s spokesman said in response to the criticism that “No one in Israel, including the organizers of the protest, has a monopoly on grief and pain. The bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families who are taking part in the ceremony chose this way to honor the death of their loved ones, because they did not find relief in the state-sponsored ceremonies that are just as political as this ceremony.”
The police cleared the demonstrators away, even though they said they received permission to demonstrate. The demonstrators carried signs that read “The left degrades soldiers on the eve of Memorial Day”, “The people of Israel lives - the left is dead”, “The left is the enemy of the people”, and “The Arab (“Palestinian”) lie murders our loved ones”.