Israeli Cabinet addresses rising anti-Netanyahu incitement following Trump assassination attempt

Following the attempt on the life of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the Israeli Cabinet held an unscheduled two-hour meeting on Sunday to discuss the growing incitement against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the start of the meeting, Cabinet Secretary and Netanyahu-confidant Yossi Fuchs screened video footage showing a compilation of comments inciting violence against the prime minister. Afterward, during the discussion held under the title “Incitement Against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” government ministers blamed the justice system for its lack of enforcement and especially accused Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of not doing enough to curb the issue.

According to the Times of Israel, the footage featured statements by various individuals, including protesters at anti-government demonstrations, calling Netanyahu a “traitor,” “Satan,” and an “enemy of the people.”

During last year’s anti-judicial reform demonstrations, Netanyahu was regularly accused of being a “fascist” and “dictator,” with some protesters and former Israeli officials comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

At the Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu lamented that “senior officials” in law enforcement and the judicial system “don’t say a word. They don’t condemn [it]. What you have here is legitimization for an assault on democracy, and you have here the normalization of political murder.”

The incitement received another push in recent months, as some hostage families and protest groups began accusing Netanyahu of delaying a hostage deal with Hamas to prolong the war and maintain his grip on power.

One portion of the video showed Ayala Metzger, the daughter-in-law of Hamas hostage Yoram Metzger, apparently threatening Netanyahu’s life.

“If the hostages don’t return, we will be waiting with a noose. This is what you deserve, the noose,” she said at a protest held outside the Netanyahu family’s private home in Caesarea last month.

After the meeting, Justice Minister Yair Levin said the justice system hasn’t taken “tough and immediate” action against people accused of incitement, warning that an assassination attempt could be made against the prime minister.

“It’s a miracle that what happened in the United States hasn’t happened until now,” Levin said. “We’ve warned that it could happen here. The justice system has abandoned the prime minister. It’s not writing on the wall, it’s much, much more than that.”

After the attempted assassination of Trump, Netanyahu was among the first world leaders to release a statement, calling the shooting “an attack on America” and “an attack on democracy.” He followed up with a longer video message some hours later.

Israeli National Unity party chairman Benny Gantz later issued a statement appealing to civil discourse, saying there was “no place for hatred and violence in a democratic country, in any shape or form, on any side of the political map.”

“Violence is a danger to any democratic society, and we must not be indifferent to it, no matter from which direction it comes, no matter how great our differences. It is forbidden to act with physical or verbal violence against demonstrators and politicians and against the prime minister,” Gantz said.

However, he added, “This is also true for the prime minister, who must act to stop the incitement that is being spread online on his behalf.”

Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid called the prime minister a “crybaby and a coward” prompting the Likud party to condemn the opposition leader.

“Lapid’s silence normalizes the violence and brings the next political murder closer,” a Likud spokesman stated.