ISRAELI COMMUNITY OF LISBON REPUDIATES ANTISEMITIC DEMONSTRATIONS AND ACTS OF AGGRESSION
– PHOTOGRAPHING FACES TO “DENOUNCE” PEOPLE AND THROWING EGGS AND PAINT ARE UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIORS THAT DESERVE REPUDIATION
– TO WISH FOR THE END OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL IS TO ADVOCATE THE END OF ITS PEOPLE
Lisbon, May 22, 2024 – Today, at the access doors to the São Jorge cinema in Lisbon, before, during and after the 76th anniversary celebration of the State of Israel, a group of demonstrators took part. anniversary of the State of Israel, a group of anti-Zionist demonstrators proclaimed offensive, anti-Semitic chants that were openly against the existence of the State of Israel.
Alongside these insulting and radical chants, the demonstrators tried to intimidate those who entered the cinema to peacefully take part in a protocol ceremony, symbolic and evocative of a crucial anniversary for the people who survived the Holocaust: the creation of a country that they have been able to call their own for 76 years.
From taking images of those who entered – so that they could later, as they did this year on social media using images from last year – display and “denounce” the faces of specific people who were present at the occasion – to throwing eggs and paint (which hit, among others, members of the Israeli Community of Lisbon – Portuguese citizens in their own right), these actions deserve vehement repudiation and a frontal and unequivocal condemnation.
They will not intimidate the Israeli Community of Lisbon, they will not intimidate Jews, we will not give in to offenses, insults and aggression. Proclaiming slogans such as Palestine “from the river to the sea” and “Palestine, it’s time for Israel to go” – among other aggressive and anti-Jewish chants – the demonstrators advocated not the existence of two states, but the complete extinction of the State of Israel. And, as a consequence, its inhabitants and its people. Nothing could be more abominable.
This is an intolerant and dangerous discourse. Freedom of expression, such an important pillar of democracy, has been polluted by a discourse marked by primal anti-Semitism.
Freedom of expression has been corrupted by acts of intolerance and gratuitous insult, but above all by unacceptable offenses and physical aggression.
CIL is grateful for the protection and committed action of the security forces.
