From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Gantz heckled, called ‘traitor’ at anti-government protest; he slams ‘scorched earthers,’ sparking left-wing anger
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
The opposition’s National Unity party chairman Benny Gantz confronts an angry demonstrator during an anti-government protest in Jerusalem, entering a shouting match with the man before they are physically separated by security officers.
During a march toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, a protester screams “get out of here, you disgrace, you betrayed our son” at Gantz, whose party joined an emergency government days after the ongoing war began in October 2023, and then exited the coalition last year citing Netanyahu’s alleged mismanagement of the war.
The shout leads Gantz to approach the man. The two are held back from each other until Gantz is led away.
תיעוד | בני גנץ מתעמת עם מפגין בירושלים שצעק לעברו: "לך מפה יא בושה, בגדת בנו"@nakash_noam pic.twitter.com/R5rkB91vB1
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) March 19, 2025
Following the incident, Gantz tweets that most of the protesters — who had come out against the firing of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, among other issues — are “Israeli patriots who care about the country.”
However, among the protesters were also “an unrepresentative handful of scorched earthers who hate Netanyahu more than they love the country,” he declares.
“These are people who have no shame in calling a person like me — who risked my life under fire for the country in uniform for decades, and who has been fighting for the country in the political arena for six years — a ‘traitor,'” he writes, insisting that “this handful of extremists are no less dangerous than the extremists on the other side, and I do not intend to surrender to them.”
In response, leader of the left-wing The Democrats party Yair Golan takes issue with the term “scorched earthers,” countering that “the protesters who took to the streets today are the greatest lovers of Israel I have ever met.”
The Democrats MK Naama Lazimi also objects to Gantz’s rhetoric, claiming that the members of Netanyahu’s government are scorched earthers while the protesters are protecting the state “with their bodies.”
In a statement hitting back at Golan, National Unity accuses him of “distorting Gantz’s words, who emphasized the importance of the demonstration and the fact that most of the demonstrators were Israeli patriots” as well as “also ignoring the simple fact that Gantz went out to demonstrate.”
A public leader who “normalizes” the use of terms such as traitor “alienates precisely the parts of the people who need to be brought together to replace this terrible government,” the centrist party states.
The Times of Israel Community.