Right-wing organizations Im Tirtzu and Yisrael Beiteinu plan to march alongside human rights groups in the massive procession through Tel Aviv Friday morning marking International Human Rights Day.

Open gallery view An Im Tirzu protest on the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev campus after the IDF raid of a Gaza-bound flotilla in May. Credit: Archive

Thousands are expected to participate in the march, which will set out from Habima Theater at 10:30 A.M. and end in a central rally in Rabin Square at midday, and likely cause major traffic jams on Ibn Gvirol Street.

More than 120 human rights organizations - including the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Adalah, Machsom Watch, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights - will participate in the march, which is being organized by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Most of these groups are associated with the left.

A number of rightist groups, however - such as Im Tirtzu, Yisrael Beiteinu, Likud Young Guard, Regavim and others - said they intend to march Friday as well, under the banner "Jews also have rights."

The organizers said the march will also draw attention to the Carmel fire, which they say demonstrated the state's shirking responsibility for its people's safety, while also castigating racism and incitement within Israeli society.

"Today it is clear that democracy is under attack," ACRI executive director Hagai El-Ad said. "A direct line can be drawn between the city rabbis' racism, the incitement against refugees, the country's growing economic gaps, the indifference toward the occupation and the fire-service debacle."

El-Ad was surprised to hear about the right-wing groups' intention to join the march, saying he found it ironic that a group "that has worked so hard to slander human rights and tarnish Professor Naomi Hazan [president of the New Israel Fund] would want to attend an event at which she is one of the main speakers."

Author and ACRI president Sami Michael will also speak at the rally.

"Jews indeed have human rights," El-Ad said, in response to the right-wing groups plaint. "But we are demanding equal rights for Jewish men and women, and for Arab men and women as well... We think [the rightist groups] have a lot to learn about rights for all humans and the march is a great opportunity to do this."

"This is not a provocation," said Im Tirtzu leader Erez Tadmor. "The human rights discourse has been expropriated for anti-Israeli propaganda. We believe the struggle for human rights is not always against the state, sometimes one must stand on the state's side."

"We have decided to put an end to the cynical use being made of human rights discourse to undermine Israel and Zionism," one member of Im Tirtzu said.

He added that his group will make it clear during the march that "IDF soldiers, reservists, farmers in the Negev and the Galilee, settlers, ultra-Orthodox people and residents of south Tel Aviv, Ashdod and Sderot also have human rights."