By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News -
Several hundred Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, demonstrating against the Green Passport, which mandates three coronavirus jabs or a negative test in order to enter leisure venues such as restaurants, hotels, and sporting events.
The Green Passport is also required in educational settings for teachers and students in universities and colleges, and parents are required to show the document in order to enter elementary and high schools.
Israel is the only country in the world which mandates a third “booster” jab for twice-vaccinated people in order to access educational institutions and leisure venues.
Protests against the Green Passport have taken place weekly in Tel Aviv since the program was reinstated in September 2021, after being discontinued in June 2021.
The protesters, numbering around 500 people, gathered in front of the HaBima theater, then marched to Dizengoff Square and on Dizengoff Street, blocking traffic on one of Tel Aviv’s busiest thoroughfares.
On the heels of the expected roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine for children from the age of five, there were a large number of parents and children at the protest.
Some protesters held signs touting Ivermectin as a cure for the virus, and others held banners decrying the “New World Order.”
However, the most common phrase written on signs and stickers – some of which the demonstrators plastered to their bodies and belongings – was a Hebrew phrase which translates to “the Green Passport is a black stain.”
Several protesters waved flags supporting former U.S. President Donald Trump and American flags.
Based on their physical appearances, representatives from nearly every sector in Israeli society were present in the diverse crowd of protesters.
Ultra-Orthodox and national religious Israelis were visible alongside tattooed, secular Israelis.
Israelis from the two largest ethnic groups – Ashkenazi Jews, whose ancestors lived in Europe, and Mizrahi Jews, whose families lived for generations in the Middle East – attended in roughly equal proportions.
