As individuals, the Netanyahu supporters protesting the opening of his trial on Sunday seemed like likable people sincerely distressed by what they perceive to be a gross injustice.
Netanyahu himself is innocent until proven guilty, and as a matter of principle, there can be no question about the legitimacy of protests for and against him.
But on Sunday, outside the court on Salah al-Din Road, the behavior of the individuals as they coalesced into a crowd, and of the Likud Party organizers and speakers, was problematic. It may continue to be so given Likud’s strategy of using the streets to discredit the proceedings.
Asked why they had come, protesters replied calmly that Netanyahu is a great prime minister and that they have no faith in the judiciary.
“We have a very good prime minister. He did nothing wrong. Otherwise he would not have been elected three times,” said Yardena Nathan, 61, a lawyer from Rehovot.
Esther Nissim, a caretaker of the elderly from Holon who was draped in a flag, said she came because the process of trying Netanyahu is undemocratic.
“We have no faith in the court,” she said.
“They want to make a coup through the court and take away our right to vote. The leftists can scream but the people want him.
He is the best prime minister we have ever had. He is smart and forward looking.”
But during the rally, the chants of the crowd, exhortations over loudspeakers and some of the signs held aloft had ominous overtones that were later massaged through appearances by Transportation Minister Miri Regev and other Likud speakers.
The verbal targeting of Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit and journalists Raviv Drucker and Amnon Abramovich was alarming.
The crowd shouted repeatedly “Mandelblit is corrupt, Mandelblit is a criminal.”
A speaker exhorted, “We demand all the tapes of Mandelblit, the criminal who stitched up the prime minister.”
Large pictures of Mandelblit conjured up images of “wanted dead or alive” posters, with one of them terming him “the agent of corruption” and demanding he be tried immediately.
Another poster had a drawing of Mandelblit behind bars with the epithet, “Those who make false cases – to jail.” It accused the Supreme Court of “deceiving the nation,” and also took aim at the police investigation unit, Lahav 433.
One of the speakers, whose name I did not catch in the heat of the moment, struck the same theme but in a more sophisticated way. As he sought to stir the crowd, he did not mention Mandelblit by name. Instead, he invoked democracy.
“The government will not be replaced by state attorneys and attorney generals,” he said. “It can only be changed at the voting stations.”
For me, a chilling moment came when an announcer began reading out the names of journalists who have pursued the story of the corruption allegations.
“‘Booz’ [an expression of severe contempt] upon Raviv Drucker,” he exhorted. “‘Booz’ upon Amnon Abramovitch.” More journalists were similarly singled out for shaming and denunciation.
Regev, who was warmly greeted by the crowd, picked up the theme. She did not name names but broadened the attack to include the media as a whole.
“Today is a sad day for Israeli democracy. The prime minister does not stand alone. We will express our position and make sure the judges don’t fall into the media’s trap.”
I did not cover the demonstrations in the run-up to the Rabin assassination in 1995, but I came away from Sunday’s Likud protest with perhaps unfair associations of what I have seen about those days on television. The dynamic of politicians legitimizing hatred and targeting was there.
Clearly, Likud seems willing to play with fire in this epic battle that is searing the nation. It would, however, be best if it takes a step back from such targeting and stoking. Restraint is needed from ministers like Regev, Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, who came out to encourage the protesters, and from the prime minister himself.
In such a charged environment, one can’t afford to be complacent or rule out the possibility that a Jew will try to harm a fellow Jew.
The writer is a former Middle East affairs reporter at The Jerusalem Post.