Ofir Akunis
Ofir AkunisKobi Richter/TPS

Science, Technology and Space Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud) on Sunday blasted the leftist protesters who on Saturday interrupted Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit as he was reciting Kaddish in memory of his mother in his synagogue in Petah Tikva.

“Yesterday was one of the lowest moments of the extreme left protesters who disrupted the Attorney General, who is not a political person and is not a public official but a senior political official at the highest level, while he was reciting his prayer,” Akunis said.

“I think we should make a very clear distinction between the legitimate right to demonstrations in a democratic state, and Israel, thank God, is a democratic state, and violent demonstrations,” he added. “The guillotine, the support for BDS, the waving of PLO flags, and of course the terrible sights we saw yesterday in Petah Tikva [are examples of such inappropriate demonstrations].”

Earlier on Sunday, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) blasted the leftist demonstrators as well, describing their actions as “terrorism”.

"What we saw last night is not an expression of the right to express opinions, it is literally terrorism, the use of personal pressure against a person, his community and his family," he said. “These things must be prevented.”

"Demonstrations cannot be an instrument that disrupts the life of a public figure and his family, they are not an instrument that can be used to persecute a person, the attorney general, a police officer, a minister, a mayor or anyone else," Steinitz added.

In his remarks on Sunday, Akunis also discussed the dispute between the haredi parties and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman over the Supermarket Law, which grants the Interior Minister the power to override city bylaws allowing stores to open on Shabbat.

Liberman on Saturday violated Shabbat by visiting Ashdod in the wake of the closure of supermarkets in the city following the approval of the law. This raised the ire of both Shas chairman Aryeh Deri and United Torah Judaism, which demanded that Netanyahu censure Liberman.

“Regarding the status quo in the State of Israel, I stood right here three weeks ago and said that the status quo must be maintained so that the state will not be torn apart socially. And as it seems in the past few days, and as I warned, the Supermarket Law is causing an unnecessary rift among the Jewish people,” Akunis warned.

“Everyone has to keep the Sabbath according to his outlook. This idea of ​​a minority group imposing its positions on another group is something that causes an unnecessary rift among the Jewish people. I ask everyone to allow each Israeli citizen to respect the Sabbath in his or her own way and not to cause an unnecessary rift in the Israeli public,” he concluded.

אקוניס: חוק המרכולים מיותר, קורע את העם