Despite low turnout, Anglos in Israel protest Trump victory

Amidst chants of “not our president!” and “love trumps hate!” one protestor says she is not protesting Trump’s election victory but tacking a stance against his policies.

By ELIYAHU KAMISHER
Updated: NOVEMBER 14, 2016 00:12
Protesters on the Tel Aviv boardwalk following Trump's election win (photo credit: ELIYAHU KAMISHER)
Protesters on the Tel Aviv boardwalk following Trump's election win
(photo credit: ELIYAHU KAMISHER)
While thousands have taken to the streets in cities across the United States to protest President-elect Donald Trump’s victory last week, a few dozen Israeli- Americans and Americans living in Israel took to the Tel Aviv boardwalk on Friday to protest in solidarity with their stateside counterparts.
Turnout was demonstrably lower than the traffic-stopping crowds seen in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, and protesters also faced antagonistic Israeli bystanders, who lectured the Americans on their own election.
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“They need to be quiet! They should wait four years, [and] then they can try to switch the government,” said Shimon al-Fasil, who was walking by the protest.
“Until then, be quiet.”
According to Israeli-American Tamar Sasson, 27, originally from New York, the protest was “to show the world and Israelis that not all Americans believe in [Trump’s] agenda or Bibi’s agenda. I want to show everyone that I am against everything that [Trump] stands for in his agenda.”
Amid chants of “Not our president!” and “Love trumps hate!” Sasson added that she was not protesting Trump’s election victory but taking a stance against his policies. “I am not rejecting the president-elect, although I disagree with everything on his agenda. I disagree with protesting his democratic his election,” Sasson said.
Other protesters thought that Trump’s victory should be contested. “The world should not be ready to accept Trump as a legitimate representative of the American people. Hillary won the popular vote, it’s time to bring Hillary back,” said a protester from Modi’in named Ellana, who declined to state her last name
“I am angry at Anglos in Israel who support Trump,” Ellana said. “They have their priorities all wrong and at the end of the day, if you’re going to take a guy like Trump, who is full of hate and fear-mongering and dehumanization of the other, and you’re going to say that he is pro-Israel, then you have to say, what does it mean to be pro-Israel?”
Dr. Barak Yaakov, who owns a house in New York state, said he disagreed with protesters, arguing that some of them misrepresented Israelis. “They must not say ‘Israelis against Trump,’ they can say ‘I am against Trump,’ but not all Israelis,” Yaakov said, “People must give him a chance to run the country.”