Activists disrupt Herzog speech, call on him to resign

Police were called to a meeting of the main opposition Zionist Union in the coastal town of Holon on Sunday after hot-under-the-collar activists tried to disrupt a speech by party leader Isaac Herzog, with some calling on him to resign.

The meeting, intended to launch the party’s Widening Circles program to win new supporters, blew up when a group of activists began waving placards and heckling loudly to disrupt Herzog’s speech. Pushing, punching, and cursing were reported by people present at the meeting.

Hilik Bar, the party’s general secretary, tried unsuccessfully to calm the atmosphere, the Ynet news site reported. Bar later blamed the “wild behavior” of a party activist who, he said, had arrived with right-wing elements with the aim of disrupting the event and harming the party and its head.

The conference was halted for 15 minutes, after which the hecklers, who also rowed with other party members, were eventually removed from the hall.

Labor Party sources told the Ma’ariv newspaper that Amnon Zilberman stood at the center of the outburst. Zilberman — secretary of the party’s Kfar Shalem branch, a former Herzog field office manager, and a candidate for Labor Party general secretary — later posted his own version of events on Facebook.

He said he had submitted a petition to have a date fixed for the election of a general secretary and wanted postponement of a political conference scheduled to take place next Sunday.

Herzog has triggered heavy criticism from within Labor in recent days by declaring that the two-state solution is not a realistic option for the time being. Herzog’s main opponent in the Zionist Union, MK Shelly Yachimovich, said she would likely challenge him for the party leadership. “With a coalition being dragged along by the likes of [Jewish Home party MK Bezalel] Smotrich and [Likud MK Oren] Hazan, the Labor Party must offer an alternative political dialogue, not just to give up on it and use the common right-wing claim that ‘there is no-one to talk to,’” she told Israeli Radio last week.