After indictment, Netanyahu scores well in polls, but Gantz does better

There were two conflicting interpretations of the demonstration of support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Tel Aviv Museum plaza on the evening of Nov. 26, both of which were accompanied by different descriptions from the ground. One emphasized the absence of most of the Likud ministers and Knesset members from the demonstration — only three attended (Culture Minister Miri Regev, and Knesset members Miki Zohar and Shlomo Kari) — and the disappointment at the small turnout of demonstrators, which numbered only a few thousand. In the second interpretation, it was an impressive show of force of 15,000 demonstrators — information that was also disseminated on social media by means of the prime minister’s accounts to his millions of followers.

The slogans and signs raised at the protest were also framed differently. Right-wing opinion leaders on social media wrote posts and tweeted about a spectacular show of democracy by a public that feels Netanyahu is persecuted with the aim of bringing down right-wing rule, and they spoke of a judicial system that employs the targeted assassination of democracy. Media and academic figure Gadi Taub, who was one of the speakers at the demonstration, tweeted the next day: “You have to lack a conscience to call those who actually protest ‘enemies of democracy.’”