Coalition whip accuses anti-overhaul protesters in US of causing ‘harm to Israel’

Coalition whip Ofir Katz of the ruling Likud party joins in criticism of anti-government protesters planning to demonstrate against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his trip to the US.

“Factually, until today those who protested against representatives of the government abroad and in particular at the UN were Israel haters, in demonstrations that were accompanied by PLO flags,” Katz writes on the X platform.

“Now they are leading to the same result — harm to the State of Israel,” he adds.

Katz takes particular umbrage at demonstrators in San Francisco who projected an image onto Alcatraz of Netanyahu in orange prison clothing grasping the bars of a cell. Katz says it was the act of a “few extremists” motivated by hate.

Activists from the UnXeptable group campaigning against the Netanyahu coalition’s judicial overhaul project an image of Prime Minister Netanyahu in prison garb on the walls of Alcatraz prison, September 17, 2023 (UnXeptable protest group)

Transportation Minister Miri Regev of Likud, a longtime Netanyahu loyalist, also hits out at the demonstrators, accusing them of “shaming the State of Israel and harming the country’s legitimacy, citizens and democracy.”

“The time has come to put an end to to this — you have lost it, the public is no longer impressed,” she writes on X. “We are building and acting for the country, while they are destroying and sowing hate.”