Israel's President wishes mixed Muslim/Jewish couple good fortune and denounces bigots who protested at wedding

President Reuven Rivlin has risked the wrath of Jewish purists and racists by posting a notice on his Facebook page wishing peace and joy to controversial couple Mahmoud Mansour and Morel Malka on the occasion of their marriage.

For the two, who met five years ago, it was love at first sight, and they knew immediately that they would eventually get married.  The groom, as his name suggests, is a Muslim. The bride was born Jewish, but recently converted to Islam. 

However this has not stopped Lehava, a group dedicated to preventing intermarriage from trying to stop this one from taking place. 

Both the bride and the groom have been subjected to harassment, as has the owner of the Rishon Lezion wedding hall where the couple were scheduled to celebrate their union on Sunday night. The bride’s father was opposed to the marriage, but could do nothing to persuade his daughter to change her mind.

When President Reuven Rivlin, a staunch defender of democracy, learned that Lehava was planning to demonstrate outside the banquet hall, he wrote on his Facebook page that the red line that runs between freedom of expression and protest and incitement has been crossed.

He noted that the couple, in deciding to get married, exercised their freedom to do so in a democratic country. Demonstrations of manifestations of incitement against them are both infuriating and worrying, he wrote.