Municipal election posters have been removed from an Israeli city after widespread outrage at their racist messaging, with only a few of the political advertisements left untouched by protesters.
The election posters for the right-wing nationalist Jewish Home party were put up earlier this week in the city of Ramle, which has a mixed Jewish and Arab population.
They showed a girl in a hijab, with a Shabbat table in the background.
The caption on the posters read: “Hundreds of cases of intermarriage in Ramle, and no one cares. Tomorrow it could be your daughter.
“Only a strong Jewish Home will maintain a Jewish Ramle.”
Haaretz reported that of the approximately 40 advertisements put up, only a few were untouched before their removal, with both Jewish and Arab residents of the city displaying anger at the posters.
The campaign comes two weeks after Likud, the party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, launched a municipal campaign in Tel Aviv showing an Israeli flag on one side and African migrants on the other (another version of the poster showed Arabs) with the caption “it’s us or them; city of Jews or city of infiltrators.”
The Likud campaign was condemned by rights groups, as well as Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv’s Mayor.
Neven Abu Rahmoun, a Member of Knesset for the Joint (Arab) List had tweeted that Jewish Home was “using racist messages, incitement and fear to advance itself in the Ramle municipal elections, a city in which more than 20% of the residents are Arabs.”
“It seems that for certain parties, incitement is the only tool for persuasion. “The local election period is contaminated with that same incitement that the government encourages, and to my great regret, it is not surprising.”
Speaking on Israeli radio, Harel Shoham, Jewish Home's chairman in Ramle, defended the posters, claiming that “the city has between 700 and 1,000 cases of intermarriage… The Arab public is also not interested in this mixed marriage.”
He also said he had received “many sympathetic comments from the Arab public in the city, who say that finally someone's getting up and saying something.”
However, ACT, an organisation fighting incitement against and exclusion of Arabs in Israel, thanked everyone “who contributed to the removal of the posters. It’s a small achievement, but a significant one.”
