Couple’s petition for injunction against protest rejected, demonstrators may not come within 200 meters of wedding hall.

By Ilan Lior

Wedding invitation published by the right-wing group Lehava on its Facebook page.

The Rishon Letzion Magistrate’s Court on Sunday granted a right-wing activists group permission to hold a protest 200 meters from the wedding hall where a Muslim man was marrying a woman who was born Jewish and converted to Islam.

The couple, Mahmoud and Morel, earlier petitioned the High Court of Justice to prevent the right-wing protest outside the hall where they plan to marry Sunday night.

In their petition, the couple asked the court to stop members of the anti-Arab organization Lehava from harassing them, including at the reception.

The organization, whose name is a Hebrew acronym for “preventing assimilation in the Holy Land,” has used Facebook to call on supporters to demonstrate at the banquet hall.

On his Facebook page, President Reuven Rivlin wrote: “There is a red line between freedom of expression and protest, and incitement,” President Reuven Rivlin wrote on his Facebook page. “Mahmoud and Morel of Jaffa decided to get married and exercise their liberty in a democratic state. The show of incitement against them is outrageous and disconcerting, regardless of my own stance or the stance of others. Not everyone needs to celebrate alongside Mahmoud and Morel, but we all must show them respect. We have within and among us difficult and profound disagreements, but incitement, violence and discrimination have no place in Israeli society…. I wish the new couple health, comfort and happiness.”

The couple lives in Jaffa. They met five years ago. Sunday night’s event will only be a celebration; a Muslim wedding has already taken place.

“We’ve been together for five years, but we’ve never encountered such racism. I always knew there were racists, but as long as you’re not affected by it, until you feel it in your own body, you don’t know what it is,” Mahmoud told Haaretz.

“If it were someone from her family, I would understand, but these people aren’t related. Why do they care? Why are they getting involved? If they think they’ll get us to give up on each other, it won’t happen.”

The groom’s parents and bride’s mother support the marriage, but the bride’s father does not and says he will not attend the celebration. The couple, however, has received plenty of support, Mahmoud says.

Source: Haaretz