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| Groom Mahmoud Mansour, 26, and his bride Maral Malka, 23, celebrate with friends and family before their wedding in Mahmoud's family house in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv August 17, 2014. (Reuters / Ammar Awad) |
The mere possibility of this wedding
had local media in frenzy in the current climate of anti-assimilation activism.
Plans to picket the occasion were announced by the ultra-conservative Lehava
group in advance, reports RT.
The Hebrew initials in the group’s
name stand for ‘Preventing Assimilation in the Holy Land’. It had published the
couple’s wedding invitation on its Facebook page, encouraging people to come
with banners and bullhorns to protest.
The couple, Maral Malka, 23 and
Mahmoud Mansour, 26, had unsuccessfully sought protection from the state by
trying to ban the protest, but according to their lawyer, could only secure
police protection. They had been receiving death threats in the run-up to the
wedding.
Several dozen Israeli police formed
human chains to keep 200 screaming far-right Israelis at bay as they picketed
the wedding of a Jewish woman and a Muslim man in this latest sign of
escalating fallout from the Gaza situation.
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| Protesters hold signs in support of the wedding of groom Mahmoud Mansour, 26, and bride Maral Malka, 23, outside a wedding hall in Rishon Lezion, near Tel Aviv August 17, 2014. (Reuters / Ammar Awad) |
“Death to the
Arabs,” they shouted, as several dozen officers, including
Israel’s elite units, prevented them from storming the wedding hall in the Tel
Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion. No one was injured, but four protesters were
arrested. They violated a court order not to approach the wedding hall by
closer than 200 meters, the Times of Israel reports.
Among those gathered outside were
also supporters of the couple, but the atmosphere was tense, as police
thoroughly checked more than 600 guests.
President Reuven Rivlin expressed his support for the
couple, highlighting the values of tolerance and respect.
“This couple decided to get married and to exercise
their freedoms in a democratic state, and the incitement against them is
outrageous and worrying,” his statement read. “Not everyone has to rejoice
about their happy occasion, but everyone must respect it.”
He
likened Lehava’s actions to “rodents gnawing under the shared democratic and
Jewish foundation of Israel.”
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