The largest rally by the Israeli left since the start of the Gaza offensive served as a reminder at the weekend of its increasingly marginal role in domestic politics.
Several thousand people gathered in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, to speak out against the war. They used 1,043 candles, an estimate of the death toll, to spell out “forgive us” in Arabic and Hebrew.
Some were members of Hadash and Meretz, left-wing parties that together hold ten seats in the 120-member Knesset, but there was no sign of the Labour party, the primary political vehicle for Israel’s centre-left.
The rally drew brief media coverage, but most of Tel Aviv simply went about its business. “It’s not the mainstream Israeli peace movement that was protesting,” Hagit Ofran,