Silencing the protest
Itamar Ben Gvir slams bill aimed at banning rallies outside homes of public officials
Several years ago, I appeared before High Court Justice Dalia Dorner, with the issue in question being the police insistence on preventing my colleagues and myself from protesting outside the home of then-Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz. During the hearing, the honorable judge surprised us by noting that “Mr. Ben Gvir protested outside my home too, and my husband didn’t like it one bit.” However, Dorner informed the stunned State Prosecutor’s representatives that she told her husband: “They have the right to protest opposite our house. This is democracy; this is freedom of speech.”
I recalled these comments by Justice Dorner after the Israeli Knesset passed the first reading of a shameful bill, which will significantly curb and possibly prevent any type of protest near the homes of public officials.
The supporters of this limit say that a person who wishes to protest can do so outside the public official’s office, and there is no need to do so opposite one’s private residence. Yet this precisely is the problem. These arguments expose the fact that supporters of the bill were never on the protesting side. Those who protested know well that a rally outside a government office is wholly ineffective.
In the above-mentioned hearing, Justice Dorner added that the proposal to hold a protest opposite the Defense Ministry (where Mofaz served) was inappropriate. “All of us realize that the defense minister won’t even see such protest, won’t even know about it, and in fact such protest will have no significance,” she said, and ordered the State Prosecutor’s Office to approve the rally outside Mofaz’s private residence.
Ever since Dorner’s ruling, many people have protested opposite the homes of public officials: The jobless on the one hand, and teachers’ unions on the other; leftist and rightist activists; and most recently, demonstrators on behalf of Gilad Shalit.
A moderating factor
We have not heard about a public official who was hurt either in a leftist or rightist protest. We haven’t heard about violence during such protests. And if you ask why such rallies never boil over to violence, the answer has to do with the words of a well-known philosopher, who said that once people are silenced, the fists do the talking. It is precisely the freedom to express one’s beliefs and chant unpopular statements that serves to moderate the protest.
To my regret, Israel at this time is home to elements who wish to silence the protest. This bill discriminates against regular folk compared to public officials, by ruling that there is in fact nobility in Israel, opposite whose houses one must not protest, while this can be done opposite the home of a regular Joe. This proposal continues the policy of those who are uncomfortable with the protests.
The main question here is where would this stop? Today we cannot protest opposite the home of a public official, tomorrow we won’t be allowed to protest outside offices, and in two days the right to protest may be banned altogether, because it’s insulting, loud, and bothersome – yet this is not democracy.
Itamar Ben Gvir is the spokesman of “Eretz Yisrael Shelanu” and a media advisor
