On Saturday, Over 200 people protested outside the residence of France’s ambassador to Israel against President Emmanuel Macron, after he vowed his country would not give up cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
Protesters, some of them wearing surgical face masks in keeping with coronavirus regulations, carried banners in Arabic in support of the prophet, AFP journalists at the scene said.
The demonstration was held in the largely-Arab district of Jaffa in Tel Aviv, after Muslim evening prayers.
One of the demonstrators, Amin Bukhari, accused Macron of playing the game of the extreme right.
He told the crowd: “The Prophet Mohammed is the most sacred thing in Islam and whoever attacks his honour, attacks an entire people.”
On Wednesday Macron said a French teacher beheaded outside his school outside Paris earlier this month was killed because Islamists want our future. The teacher, Samuel Paty, was murdered after he had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a class he was leading on free speech.
He said: We will not give up cartoons, declaring that Islamists will never have France’s future.
The gathering dispersed without incident.
Visual representation of the prophets is strictly forbidden in Islam and to ridicule or insult the Prophet Mohammed is punishable by death in some Muslim countries.
Calls to boycott French goods are growing in the Arab world and beyond, in response to Macron’s comments.
