Court to allow anti-Arab protest outside Jewish-Palestinian wedding

By Mairav Zonszein August 17, 2014 | Edit

A Palestinian citizen of Israel and his fiance, a Jewish Israeli who converted to Islam, have turned to the courts to try and prevent a protest planned at their wedding Sunday night, Haaretz reported.

As I reported here Thursday, the anti-miscegenation, anti-Arab group Lehava publicized the couple’s wedding invitation on social media in full with date and location and called on supporters to show up and protest the union. It doesn’t interest them that the bride has converted and no longer considers herself a Jew, or that they are two consenting adults who wish to spend their lives together. As far as they are concerned, she is an apostate who must be saved from this Muslim man.

The couple requested that the court not only issue an injunction against the protest but also against the group for the harassment they have been subjected to. Along with some of their family members, the two have reportedly received death threats over the phone. As a result, before turning to the court, they were required by the police to hire 33 security guards at a cost of NIS 15,000, of which the wedding hall will pay half.

According to a report in Channel 2 (Hebrew), the judge decided to let the protest go ahead, but ordered it take place 200 meters from the wedding hall so as to prevent any friction between the wedding goers and the protesters. The judge also said that if in fact it is proven that the couple has been harassed and threatened, it will be considered a crime.

The groom, Mahmoud Mansour, told Haaretz: “We’ve been together for five years, but we’ve never encountered such racism. I always knew there were racists, but as long as you’re not affected by it, until you feel it in your own body, you don’t know what it is.”

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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