In Tel Aviv, Tens of Thousands Demonstrate Against Netanyahu
TEL AVIV — Chanting “Bibi resign,” tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday in the Tel Aviv square where former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.
The protest organized by the Movement For Early Elections, which says it is unaffiliated with any political party, was the biggest anti-Netanyahu demonstration in Israel since the right-wing Likud Party leader became prime minister a year ago.
It coincided with tensions within Netanyahu’s fractious coalition and a Middle East peace crisis over his government’s building of a Jewish settlement in traditionally Arab East Jerusalem.
Many in the crowd in Rabin Square wore stickers with a photo of a scowling Netanyahu and the slogan “Bibi is bad for all of us.”
But most of the demonstrators appeared to be Ashkenazim--Jews of European descent--and not Sephardim, or Middle Eastern Jews, who provide Likud with its power base.
Police gave no official estimate of the size of the crowd. Israeli media said between 40,000 and 50,000 people were in the plaza where Labor Prime Minister Rabin had addressed a peace rally in 1995 moments before he was shot.
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