Europe's far right in Jerusalem as 'new friends' of Israel

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00:00Well, there are several reasons, one of which is that he's more and more isolated diplomatically

00:05as time goes by.

00:07Israel, through its handling of the war in Gaza, has distanced itself from basically

00:14all of Europe, and certainly it had distanced itself from the Biden administration.

00:19One of the reasons it's now connecting, including to Holocaust deniers, and as you said, to

00:24people connected to neo-Nazi parties, is because Prime Minister Netanyahu and his ministers

00:30feel that Donald Trump gives them cover to do that.

00:34What they apparently didn't take into account is that everybody else is not giving them

00:38cover, and so everyone from the keynote speaker, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy,

00:45through the Israeli president Isaac Herzog, have pulled out from the conference, and today

00:50we saw the conference organizers, that is the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, putting

00:55out an advert in which they were begging for people to sign up, last-minute registration

01:00open for this.

01:02Now it's going to be more or less an empty conference that will begin tomorrow.

01:06So people in Israel, ordinary people, ordinary folk, angry about what's going on.

01:10We're seeing the protest as you're speaking to us, Noga.

01:13Tell us about that.

01:14Tell us about this protest.

01:19Things are really hot and heavy here tonight, Mark, I have to tell you.

01:23We are at the outskirts of a vast protest with thousands, tens of thousands of people

01:30protesting what Netanyahu has been doing.

01:33This includes his union with neo-Nazi adjacent figures.

01:38It includes his efforts tonight to pass a law which will stuff with politicians the

01:43Judicial Appointments Committee, and it includes overtly illegal acts, which he has allowed

01:48himself to do this week, reappointing his minister in charge of police, despite the

01:53Attorney General informing him he could not do so legally, trying to fire the head of

01:58the domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, again, despite being warned by the Attorney

02:03General that this was not legal, and now attempting to fire her, the last gatekeeper who is trying

02:10to maintain the affect, I would say, of the rule of law in Israel.

02:16Noga Tarnapolski for now.

02:17Thank you very much indeed for giving us that insight into how Israelis feel about

02:22this invitation to the French far right and others to be at a special conference which

02:26has been boycotted now because of the controversy that has emerged, and as Noga points out,

02:33Benjamin Netanyahu trying to cosy up to the likes of the French far right because he is

02:36increasingly isolated at home, issues relating to how the war in Gaza has been carried out,

02:42but most of all, how the hostages still are in the hands of Hamas, some 59 people left

02:49in the hands of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. We will bring you more, of course, as we get

02:54it, and thanks again to Noga Tarnapolski joining us there from that protest in Israel.

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