Rally for change – no more Bibi
Israelis take part in an anti-Netanyahu rally in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv on March 7, 2015. Photo by Jack Guez / AFP/ Getty Images)
Tens of thousands attend anti-Netanyahu rally in Tel Aviv
Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan tells crowd of up to 35,000 that under Netanyahu, Israel faces most severe leadership crisis in country’s history.
By Jonathan Lis and Yaniv Kubovich, Ha’aretz
March 07, 2015
A rally seeking change in Israel’s leadership attracted tens of thousands to Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Saturday night.
According to the “Israel Wants Change” event’s organizers, more than 35 thousand people attended. Other officials estimate between 25,000-30,000 protesters turned out to the rally.
Keynote speaker, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, told the crowd that Israel faces its worst crisis ever under Netanyahu’s leadership.
“No one denies that Iran’s nuclear program is a threat, but going to war with the U.S. is not the way to stop it,” Dagan said.
“Israel is a country surrounded by enemies, but the enemies are not scaring us,” Dagan said. “I am afraid of our leadership. I am afraid of a loss of determination, of a loss of personal example. I am afraid of hesitancy and stalemate, and I am afraid above all of the crisis of leadership, a leadership crisis that is the most severe ever here.”
“Benjamin Netanyahu has served as prime minister for six years straight,” Dagan noted, “six years in which he has not led a single genuine process of change to the face of the region or the creation of a better future. On his watch, Israel conducted the longest [military] campaign since the War of Independence.” Posing a question to the prime minister directly, Dagan added:
“Why should you be responsible for our fate if you are so afraid to take responsibility?”
“I am not a politician and not a public figure, and I came here this evening without personal aspirations, not looking for a position and without a grudge or bitterness,” he said.
“We deserve leadership that will set new priorities. It has long not been a question of left wing and right wing. It’s a question of a path, a vision, a different horizon.”
Michal Kesten-Keidar, the widow of Col. Dolev Keider, who was killed in last summer’s Gaza conflict, also spoke. “How many women like me will lose their heart until we reach an agreement,” asked Kesten-Keidar.
Former GOC Northern Command and deputy Mossad chief Amiram Levin is also among the scheduled speakers.
The rally, which commenced at 7:30 P.M., is organized by the One Million Hands movement. The event was expected to draw people from the center and left of the political map who are seeking a change in Israel’s priorities, refocusing on health, education, housing, wages, the cost of living and the elderly.
The organizers and key speakers said the rally was be about expressing support for a return to a way of life that is normal and sane, to a life with dignity and peace between Israel and its neighbours.
“If someone doesn’t care if there are wars, why should he care about the cost of living? I do not accept the claim that there is no one to vote for so don’t vote, or the claim that the Israeli public is fated to live with war. The leadership has responsibility to those combat soldiers and a responsibility to prevent the killing,” said Kesten-Keidar.
Levin, who was one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commanders in the Israel Defense Forces, said, “When the prime minister is in the United States he is the leader of all of us, but the little that he said in Congress would have better been said privately in the Oval Office – then there might have been a chance to exert influence.”
Speaking last week at a press conference called by Commanders for Israel’s Security, a movement of which he is a member, Levin added, “The rule of one people over another makes the strongest and most moral army in the world immoral and weak. Israel must take back the initiative, set its final borders to ensure security and a solid Jewish majority. Anyone who is afraid to lead the initiative to diplomatic and security arrangements in the region will, in the end, give it all up, down to the last millimetre. Only initiative can keep some of the territory and settlement in our hands.”
Dagan also criticized Netanyahu. “As someone who has served the country for 45 years in security posts, including during some of its hardest hours, I feel we are at a critical period for our future and security,” he said. “I have no personal interest in the prime minister, his wife, his expenses and his way of life. I am talking about the policy he leads. It is a destructive policy for the future and security of Israel. And as someone who raised children here and is now raising grandchildren here, and who believes with all his heart in the Zionist dream, I feel there is a danger to the continued existence of this dream, and that is why I will come to speak.”
Among the organizations taking part are the Kibbutz Movement; a group of combat soldiers who led the crossing of the Suez Canal in the 1973 Yom Kippur War; the Movement for the Future of the Western Negev; representatives of factory workers who recently lost their jobs; and residents of the Gaza border area.
Israelis call for defeat of Netanyahu rally in Tel Aviv. The demonstrators are anxious to show the flag as loyal Israelis. Photo by Avshalom Sassoni.
Ex-Mossad chief at anti-Netanyahu rally: Our leadership scares me more than our enemies
Meir Dagan delivered the keynote address at a demonstration held under the banner of “Israel wants change.”
By JPost
March 07, 2015
An estimated 50,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening for a rally aimed at persuading the public to vote out of office Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 17.
Meir Dagan, the former Mossad director, gave an emotional keynote address during which he spoke of the need for “a new vision.”
“Let me acknowledge that this isn’t a natural platform for me,” Dagan said. “Those who know me know that I’ve never been one for making grand speeches. I’m not a politician or a public servant, and I am here not out of any personal aspirations or in search of a position. I come here without any bitterness or grudges.”
“The only party to which I belong is the State of Israel,” he said. “I am here before you now as a soldier who wishes to do all that is possible and necessary for the sake of the state to which I devoted 45 years of my life.”
“Israel is a nation surrounded by enemies, but our enemies are not the ones that scare me,” Dagan said. “I am frightened by our leadership. I am afraid because of the lack of vision and a loss of direction. I am frightened by the hesitation and the stagnation [of Israel’s government]. And I am frightened, above all else, from a crisis in leadership. It is the worst crisis that Israel has seen to this day.”
The organizers of a rally, held under the banner of “Israel wants change,” anticipated a crowd of at least 10,000 at Rabin Square.
Also among the speakers are the widow of an IDF officer killed during the recent Operation Protective Edge in Gaza; Orly Bar-Lev, a journalist; and IDF Maj. Gen. (res.) Amiram Levin, a former GOC Southern Command.
Dagan has been a fierce critic of Netanyahu’s policies, particularly as they pertain to the Palestinian question as well as the premier’s very public protestations against the Obama administration’s talks with the Iranian regime regarding its budding nuclear program.
The former head of Mossad eviscerated Netanyahu’s speech to Congress this past week.
In an interview with Channel 2 that aired on Friday evening, Dagan is seen watching the speech while using harsh, blunt language to describe some of the claims made by the premier before US lawmakers in Washington.
He also charged Netanyahu with failing to “defeat” Hamas this past summer during Operation Protective Edge.
The former Mossad director said that the prime minister’s policies “will bring about an end to the Zionist dream.”
“On the Palestinian matter, his policies are leading to either a binational state or an apartheid state,” Dagan told Channel 2.
“I served this country 45 years, fighting for this country to be a Jewish and Zionist state. I don’t want this to disappear. I don’t want this to happen. It could lead to the end of the Zionist dream.”
“The manner in which the prime minister and Mr. [Naftali] Bennett are leading us will bring about a binational state. I think that would be a disaster.”
Tens of thousands fill Rabin Square for anti-Netanyahu rally
Ex-Mossad chief Dagan intensifies attack on PM as demonstrators pour into central Tel Aviv for ‘Israel wants change’ event
By Times of Israel staff
March 07, 2015
estimated 40,000 demonstrators poured into Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square Saturday evening to take part in a rally calling for a change in government.
The plaza was filled with posters supporting the left-wing Meretz party and the centre-left Zionist Union.
Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan headlined the speakers who took to the podium to address the teeming crowd. Having unleashed harsh criticism of the Netanyahu administration in an interview aired Friday, Dagan again attacked the prime minister, saying “we have a leader who fights only one campaign — the campaign for his own political survival.”
“In the name of this war, he is dragging us down to a bi-national state and to the end of the Zionist dream,” the former spy chief, 70, said of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan speaks at an anti-Netanyahu election rally in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, March 7, 2015 (Channel 10 screenshot)
Ex-Mossad chief Meir Dagan speaks at an anti-Netanyahu election rally in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, March 7, 2015 (Channel 10 screenshot)
Dagan, who seemed close to tears at times and who stressed that he had no personal political ambitions, said he did not fear Israel’s enemies, but “I fear our leadership” which had “lost its way” and was characterized by “hesitancy and indecisiveness.”
Israel had “never been more stuck than in the six years” of Netanyahu’s prime ministership, “with no progress toward a better future,” Dagan charged.
Michal Kastan Keidar, widow of an officer killed in last summer’s Operation Protective Edge, also took to the stage and castigated Netanyahu for what she called his blindness to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, what’s important is life itself, but it’s impossible to speak all the time about Iran and to turn a blind eye to the bloody conflict with the Palestinians which costs us so much blood,” she said.
In a statement responding to Dagan and the rally in general, the Likud party said that “the rally in Tel Aviv is part of a campaign orchestrated by the left [and] funded by millions of dollars from abroad. The aim is to change the nationalist Likud government headed by Netanyahu with a left wing government headed by [Tzipi] Livni and [Isaac Herzog] which will be supported by the Arab parties.”
It noted that despite what it called Dagan’s left wing ideology, the Mossad chief requested to extend his service under Netanyahu. The party asserted that the public knows that only a Netanyahu government can prevent a nuclear Iran and the establishment of a “terror state” in the West Bank.
The anti-Netanyahu rally on March 7, 2015 on Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. Israelis go to the polls on March 17. Photo by Jack Guez / AFP
The Tel Aviv municipality closed major streets leading to the central plaza in the lead up to the rally titled “Israel wants change.” Those attending the event were advised to arrive by public transportation.
Organizers expected a large turnout of “citizens who will paint Rabin Square with hundreds of thousands of hands and demand to change the government and to change the country’s priorities,” Ynet reported.
The rally comes just a week and a half before the country goes to the polls on March 17. Next Saturday, a pro-Netanyahu rally is planned for the same square.