From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
‘Say enough’: Lapid calls on public to join anti-government protests
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid calls on Israelis to take to the streets to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “illegitimate government,” arguing that “the only solution is the unity of an entire people who come together and say ‘enough.'”
“We are taking to the streets because the Israeli government has lost its legitimacy,” Lapid says ahead of a set of planned demonstrations in Jerusalem sparked by the government’s plan to vote to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.
“We will not break the law, we will continue to serve, but we will stand firm against a government that is trying to dismantle the country,” Lapid declares in a recorded message calling on Israelis to demonstrate for the return of the hostages, the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the events of October 7, 2023, ultra-Orthodox enlistment, and the protection of the legal system.
“Everyone who fought before the war for a democratic and liberal Israel, everyone who marched in the streets and then stopped because they said to themselves: ‘in times of war, we need to unite,’ knows today that silence in the face of a destructive government is not unity. Silence only gives them more time to tear us apart,” he continues.
He says everyone except for the security forces protecting Israel from external enemies should take part in the demonstrations to “defend the State of Israel from a government that is trying to destroy us from within.”
The Times of Israel Community.