The prime minister, who had earlier expressed a desire to freeze the judicial overhaul legislative push in light of Sunday’s mass protests, called for right-wing protesters to rally in support of the bills Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been issuing a call since Monday morning for right-wing demonstrators to attend a rally tonight in Jerusalem in support of the regime upheaval and against any halt to the judicial overhaul legislation. His appeal was launched in the form of a poster, which was disseminated on Likud WhatsApp groups run by Netanyahu’s subordinates. The prime minister has been leaning toward pausing the legislative efforts since the mass protests of Sunday night, and his party is unaware of any change in that position. The message sent through right-wing channels consisted of a poster, which urged readers to come to the demonstration: “Emergency – Going up to Jerusalem! They won’t steal our elections!” the text proclaimed, accompanied by a list of rides from around the country. Netanyahu had expressed his position regarding a legislative freeze to the heads of the coalition earlier on Monday, and had even planned to make a public statement, which has since been postponed. The WhatsApp groups to which the poster was sent are called “the national camp” and are run by the Likud Party. There are several such groups, totaling several hundred subscribers each. They were opened for people who had signed up for “Bibigram” – Netanyahu’s bot on the Telegram app, which connects subscribers to the WhatsApp groups. There are [also] many private WhatsApp groups consisting of Likud supporters who support the judicial overhaul and who try on occasion to organize rallies – thus far with no great success. This marks the first time since the regime upheaval began that Netanyahu’s bot is involved in the process. The bot is not considered very active, and it usually updates its followers once every few days, mostly with information about the prime minister’s trips abroad. But on Monday, it sent four messages – an event considered unusual. Three messages called on right-wing activists to arrive at one of the rally locations around the country, and another invited them to join another WhatsApp group organizing transportation to Jerusalem. The “national camp” WhatsApp group is divided by geographical region and closed to responses. This way, the group managers can transmit focused messages without criticism or oversight. At the same time, Monday afternoon has seen immense pressure exerted on right-wing supporters to go out and protest, including from coalition partners National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Likud’s Public Diplomacy Minister Galit Distal Atbaryan. The Religious Zionism list’s leaders, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, also publicly announced their intention to attend the rally, and called on their supporters to do the same. An announcement by Smotrich reads: “We must not, under any circumstances, stop the reform. We are the majority. We must not surrender to violence, anarchy, objectionism and wildcat strikes. We meet tonight in front of the Knesset.” Ben-Gvir tweeted: “Today, we stop sitting quietly. Today, the right wakes up.” Alongside them, 17 senior Religious Zionism rabbis published a call to attend the right-wing rally to be held on Monday night in Jerusalem. Among the signatories are Rabbis Shmuel Eliyahu, Dov Lior, Yehuda Sadan, and Yigal Levinstein. In their joint notice, the religious leaders declare, among other things: “It is unthinkable that the minority should force its opinions [on others] through violence and by creating anarchy. We call upon the representatives of the national camp not to stop the legislation, and we strengthen their hands.”
