The divided left-wing, led by Peace Now and Arab Knesset Members, brought its division to the streets Saturday night and called on Labor party leader and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to quit the coalition government.
Hundreds of Israeli flags were waved during the protest of approximately 6,000 people, highlighting that their object of wrath was Barak. (For a thorough critique of Barak's leadership, by Moshe Dann, click here)
“The government is drowning us all," read a large sign. Dov Henin, veteran legislator of the Arab-Israeli Hadash party, charged that “Barak has refused to move on the path of peace and leads [us to] a dangerous deterioration. The same people who sent the soldiers to take over the flotilla in the middle of the night are liable to send Israel to a new and terrible war.”
Hadash MK Mohamed Barakeh declared, “We will not let the crazy right wing push aside the left and the Arab sector into political isolation.”
In a stinging response, Yulia Shamalov Berkovich said, “Peace Now is systematically chipping away at the backbone of the State of Israel” and that the protest “justified violence against IDF soldiers. Anyone who considers himself to love Israel should condemn the demonstration.”
Protests around the world continued to castigate Israel for intercepting the Hamas-bound flotilla last week and held the Jewish State responsible for the deaths of nine Muslim terror activists who provoked a clash with Navy commandos.
In Sweden, dockworkers are preparing a week-long boycott of Israeli ships beginning next week. "If an Israeli ship would come we would just leave it be and not work on it,” said Peter Annerback, a spokesman for the Swedish Port Workers Union. The union said the boycott is in response “the unprecedented criminal attack on the peaceful ship convoy.”
Algerians, Turks and Tunisians, many of whom held up Palestinian Authority flags, marched in Marseilles.
In Canada, hundreds of demonstrators rallied in major cities with signs reading “Boycott Israel” and “I am ashamed to live in the country that calls itself the best friend of Israel.”
Supporters of Israel rallied in Toronto and other places, and police kept both sides apart.