Coalition lawmakers slam judicial system at solidarity rally for reservist charged in PM’s office leak case

Several hundred people attended a protest earlier this evening in support of Ari Rosenfeld, the IDF reservist charged in the Prime Minister’s Office intelligence documents theft and leak scandal.

The rally was held outside the Ayalon Prison where Rosenfeld has been held since last month, and participants included several coalition lawmakers who addressed the crowd and used the opportunity to tear into the Israeli judicial system for charging Rosenfeld along with an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Eli Feldstein.

“I hope State Prosecutor [Amit Aisman] will come to his senses. [Rosenfeld’s wife] Avital has been waiting for you. [Their son] Evyatar has been waiting for you for too long… We want Ari home, he needs to be home. He was a loyal soldier of the State of Israel. We don’t need ‘Pollards’ in this country said Likud MK Amit Halevi, likening Rosenfeld to Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence analyst who passed thousands of top secret American documents to Israel, straining relations between the two close allies.

Halevi appeared to justify the actions of Pollard, who was convicted of espionage in 1985 and sentenced to life before being granted early release in 2015.

In her speech at the rally, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman claimed the Israeli justice system has granted Hamas terror suspects the right to receive appropriate conditions while in prison while keeping Rosenfeld behind bars.

אלפים באירוע הדלקת נרות חנוכה ותפילה מחוץ לכלא איילון, בקריאה לשחרורו של נגד המודיעין ארי רוזנפלד, שמואל, אביו של הנגד ארי, אמר בהדלקת הנרות מול כלא איילון "אנו מדליקים חנוכיה כדי לגרש את החושך" pic.twitter.com/GR9oh2gBLT

— ערוץ 7 (@arutz7heb) December 28, 2024