April 3, 2024 (EIRNS)—Thousands of Israelis demonstrated for a third day of the four-day campaign of demonstrations demanding the ouster of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Addressing the thousands of demonstrators in front of the Knesset, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak denounced the Netanyahu government as “stumbling and confused” and argued that a ground offensive currently being planned for Rafah would further endanger the hostages. “Netanyahu is sacrificing the hostages on the altar of ‘total victory,’'’ he told the crowd. He called for the ouster of the government and for fresh elections. He also argued for the Histadrut labor union to throw its full support behind the demonstrations and bring about a “shutdown of the entire country.”
Another speaker, Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, set the tone of other speakers when she denounced Netanyahu as “Pharaoh who inflicts on us the plague of the firstborn. You call us traitors when it is you who is a traitor—a traitor to your people, your voters and the State of Israel,” she said. Netanyahu has not called any of the hostage families traitors, but some of his most fervent supporters have.
Demonstrators then moved to march on the Jerusalem residence of Netanyahu where police used pepper spray, water cannons and horse-mounted riot police to disperse the demonstrators. TV coverage showed some protesters being severely beaten and arrested. Netanyahu’s lunatic son,Yair, a chip off the old block, compared protesters to Nazis because they carried torches.
