Likud activist Rami Ben Yehuda is seen punching retired Col. Rami Matan at a bridge near Jerusalem, September 24, 2022. (Screenshot: Crime Minister)
A prominent Likud activist on Saturday assaulted protesters demonstrating against far-right opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on a highway overpass outside Jerusalem. Rami Ben-Yehuda, who is on Likud’s payroll amid the right-party’s election campaign, was seen punching a former colonel, Rami Matan as well as striking another protester over the head with a megaphone.
Recounting the incident, Matan said Channel 13 news, “Rami Ben-Yehuda arrived at our bridge with a megaphone and began to shout ‘terrorists, Germans, leftist traitors.’” Protesters had gathered at some 150 locations across the country on Saturday, holding signs with slogans against Netanyahu’s potential return to power after Israel’s upcoming elections, to be held on November 1.
In addition, activists demonstrating against Netanyahu were assaulted in two different incidents on past Saturday, September 17. The first of two incidents took place on Route 4’s Ramat Hadar Bridge outside Hod Hasharon where roughly 20 people were staging one of the several rallies held on a weekly basis at bridges and junctions throughout the country. In another incident at Haogen Junction, an anti-Netanyahu demonstrator said a young man got out of his car and began swearing at her. He then spit on the woman, grabbed her sign that read “No, Bibi. Yes, change.” and lit it on fire.
It was the four and third times that such assaults have taken place this month after anti-Netanyahu protesters had rocks thrown at them at a similar roadside demonstration at Rishonim bridge on September 3.
The Crime Minister group, which helps organize the weekly protesters said afterward, “When Netanyahu’s poison machine incites and normalizes the most extreme elements, it’s no wonder that violence runs rampant. However, we will not be deterred. We will return en masse to the bridges and intersections to make sure he does not return. We defeated him in the past, we will defeat him again.” According Zo Haderech, anti-Netanyahu activists have been attacked in several occasions in the past by fascists particularly during the height of their demonstrations in 2020 when far-right opposition leader still held the premiership.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=30581
Source: Communist Party of Israel