Government secretary Yossi Fuchs presented to ministers during Sunday weekly meeting a video collage of harsh verbal attacks on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from a series of protests against him.
The video, which a spokesperson called “the incitement video,” including speakers at rallies calling the prime minister a “traitor and enemy of the people” and “the largest enemy of the Jewish people in the last 2,000 years”; threats like “every Bibist (Netanyahu supporter) will receive a bullet to the head” and “we are waiting with a noose”; claims that the prime minister was “the devil” and “a cancer”, and more.
The video was shown to ministers a day after an assassination attempt on former US President and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and a number of ministers in statement prior to the government meeting warned that what they claimed was incitement against Netanyahu would lead to a similar result.
According to a report by Channel 12, some ministers, including National Security Minister MK Itamar Ben-Gvir and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, blamed Attorney-General Gali Baharav Miara for failing to enforce the law against the instances of incitement, and called for her removal.
Insinuation that Baharav-Miari has been lax on enforcing issues
Ben-Gvir, Chikli, and other ministers, including Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, have insinuated in recent weeks that Baharav-Miara was intentionally lax on enforcing the issue as part of an attempt to bring down the government. None of the ministers offered proof of this claim.
Netanyahu himself has repeatedly warned against threats against himself and his family, who have been given unprecedented levels of security protection.
As leader of the opposition, Netanyahu himself was accused of contributing to the tense environment that led to the assassination of former prime minister Yizhak Rabin in 1995. Netanyahu has rejected that claim.