Close to 10 thousand demonstrators of all ages, Jews and Arabs, marched on Saturday (16.10.10) in the streets of Tel-Aviv in protest against the racist laws which are about to be enacted by the Knesset, headed by the law that requires non-Jews who ask for citizenship to swear allegiance to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state”.

The protesters marched from the Likud headquarters to the Ministry of Defense, shouting “Jews and Arabs – refuse to be enemies!”, “No allegiance to racism!”, “Democracy cannot be built on racist laws!”, “Wake up – Fascism is already on the march!”

Demonstrators carried the two-flag signs of Gush Shalom, red flags of Hadash, green flags of Meretz, Peace Now flags and stickers of several peace and human rights groups. One of stickers said “I am not loyal to Lieberman!” – causing Uri Avnery to remark that it is a mistake to put all the blame on Lieberman instead of pointing to the main culprit, Binyamin Netanyahu.

One of the protesters carried a sign saying “No citizenship without loyalty” – in German, alluding to the Fascist past.