Israel Snapshot: The Left Targets Foreign Minister Lieberman

Following the Knesset's approval of an enquiry into the activities and funding of left-wing organizations, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday: "These organizations are terror supporters whose only goal is to weaken the IDF [Israel Defense Force], weaken its resolve to defend the citizens of Israel."

On Friday, Haaretz's Yossi Sarid responded with the warning that Israel was becoming a second "corrupt" Russia, thanks to the Liebermans who came from this "non-democratic" country. Sarid added: "Lieberman and his serfs have a dream that is a nightmare - to turn the Jewish and democratic state into a Jewish and Soviet state: corrupt judges, bribed policemen, frightened prosecutors, submissive journalists, human rights activists in handcuffs, and an opposition for decoration only."

In contrast, The Jerusalem Post's Hagai Segal refrained from blaming Lieberman for the linkage of terror and the Israeli Left. Instead, he pointed to a statement by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in March 1995, in which he told journalists that, after withdrawal from Gaza, they would be able to fight Hamas “without the High Court and without [the human rights organisation] B’Tselem.”  

While the contest continued in the newspapers, thousands of demonstrators marched in Tel Aviv to protest the Knesset's endorsement of the enquiry. Protestors carried signs with slogans such as "Awaiting Democracy", "Danger! End of Democracy Ahead", "Fighting the Government of Darkness", and "Democracy is Screaming for Help". The Director-General of Peace Now, Yariv Oppenheimer, told the rally that "the Lieberman threat" is more serious than the Iranian threat.

The executive director of The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Hagai Elad,  declared during the protest that "the thousands of people who are here understand that our democracy needs protection against its destroyers. We are voicing a clear voice in support of human rights and democracy, and against racism, McCarthyism and future destruction. We will continue to fight for democratic values, freedom of speech, equal rights for citizens and the end of the occupation."