Herzog tells activists outside his home: ‘Kahanists must be removed from government’
Small group of protesters outside president’s residence in north Tel Aviv urge him to stand up against ‘dangers to democracy’; Ben Gvir attacks him for ‘disgusting hypocrisy’
President Isaac Herzog spoke with a small but loud group of activists protesting near his house in north Tel Aviv on Saturday, agreeing with them that extremist elements needed to be removed from the current government, as they berated him for not doing enough in their view to safeguard Israel’s democracy.
As the president stood surrounded by security guards and holding a tallit bag and prayer books, apparently on the way to or from the synagogue, one of the activists shouted, “You’re the president of a Kahanist government, you should be up in arms about it!”
The protesters were referring to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who is a disciple of the late racist rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the now-banned Kach party which advocated for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.
Herzog replied: “Of course, Kahanism needs to be removed from the government.”
A video of the incident posted to social media showed a small group of activists constantly interrupting and talking over the president as he tried to speak about his efforts to encourage unity within Israeli society, amid the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.
When the protesters asked him to label far-right members of the government, specifically National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, as a “danger to democracy,” Herzog said he speaks up when he feels it’s necessary, as he did last year during the government’s contentious judicial overhaul, which has been frozen.
הבוקר בצהלה: נשיא המדינה יצחק הרצוג מתבכיין שבכלל עושים לו עוול! (רחמים). לדבריו הוא הנשיא של כולם, והוא לא אמור לנקוט עמדה.
לא אמור לנקוט עמדה מוסרית, בזמן שממשלת חניבעל מקריבה למוות 115 חטופים ישראלים, מחסלת את הדמוקרטיה, את הכלכלה ואת הביטחון, מאפשרת למחבלים יהודים לבצע… pic.twitter.com/VTyRVLNaZN
— Nava Rozolyo נאווה רוזוליו (@rozolyo) August 17, 2024
“Excuse me, did you not see what happened in Jit?” demanded one of the protesters, referring to the West Bank village where a Palestinian man was killed Thursday amid a violent rampage of extremist Jewish settlers, the latest in a spate of West Bank attacks against Palestinians.
“Jit is being taken care of,” said Herzog, condemning the “extremely grave” incident. However, the president said, it must be remembered that of the “half a million Israeli citizens” who live in West Bank settlements, “99 percent are law-abiding.”
He told the protesters that he believes in “the State of Israel and Israeli society and Israeli democracy.”
“And Israeli democracy will win,” the president added.
The protesters brushed off Herzog’s insistence that he represents all Israeli people and that he has repeatedly called for unity with cries of, “So what!”
In a lull of a few seconds when some of the activists quieted down the rest of the crowd, Herzog reiterated that he meets with the families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza every day, along with bereaved Israelis.
“You’re just giving me grief,” he told the crowd.
On Saturday evening Ben Gvir lashed out at Herzog for his comments, saying that when he ran for president, Herzog “met with me several times to get my support.” He said Herzog has on several occasions “given [me] complements, saying how talented Otzma Yehudit ministers are, how pleased he is with our MKs.”
He added: “It was amusing to hear the honored president ingratiating himself to the assortment of anarchists trying to run the country and divide the people… Perhaps the president should do as he did during his police investigations and be silent. Hypocrisy is disgusting.”
Herzog, a former Labor party member, was questioned by police over suspicions of illegal party donations in the early 2000s but was cleared of wrongdoing.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Relatives of hostages still held in Gaza, along with anti-government activists, have regularly protested outside the homes of senior officials since in a bid to push for a hostage-ceasefire deal and to call for early elections and the ouster of Netanyahu and his government.
