Is Raf OK? -- Installment #96
2024-04-01 -- Jerusalem - Demonstration Edition
Tags: 2 Min Read; Several Video Clips
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I was in Jerusalem yesterday and went to the large anti-government protest. Uncharacteristically (for me), I arrived a bit early.
An hour in, they announced that 100,000 people were in attendance. I didn't believe them. I thought they were exaggerating. By a lot.
Making my way out, well, trying to make my way out, before things finished, snaking through 100's of meters of densely packed people, I changed my mind. There could well have been 100,000+ people there.
Veterans of the 1973 Yom Kippur War will fight for the character of the state
(There were a lot of guys with this shirt.)
Not Seen
No Haredim (ultra orthodox). Strangely few modern orthodox (close to zero).
Seen all over Jerusalem today:
The secular have awoken.
A failed government: Scat!
(It may be: “Aborted government.”)
Seen - Signs and Shirts
One of my favorite shirts: Yeshayahu Leibowitz saying: "I told you..."
By chance, I walked by his house during the day.
Performance Political Awareness
This group caught my eye... as they were forming up right at the beginning. Wearing the symbols of the banned Jewish extremist group Kach and marching with a goose step. Their banner says "Trigger Warning" at the top and reads "With Blood and Fire We Will Guard the Dictatorship!" (Though in Hebrew it says: "With Blood and Fire We Will Block A Dictatorship")
Note the trigger warning: This phrase ties back to the Nazi phrase "Blood and soil" and the far right Zionist phrase "With blood and fire Judea will rise."
When I first saw them, I thought: This is a provocation. They are hoping to be met with fists so they can start a ruckus and have the police shut down the whole demonstration.
Yet no animosity was directed their way. Only cameras.
Later, finding their site on the Internet, “htt-ps://bengvirmilitia.com/“ I now understand them to be an anti-fascist group that dresses up to raise awareness of the fascist tendencies in the current government.
Other Clips
Relief Area
No Relief Area in this post. Check out the big section in #95
(Thank you A.K.)