Israeli president flooded with death threats for condemning 'Jewish terror'

Shira Rubin | Special for USA TODAY

JERUSALEM — Israeli police launched an investigation Monday into incitement charges after a wave of social media users threatened President Reuven Rivlin, calling him a “traitor” and “Arab terrorist” after he condemned two attacks by Jewish Israelis that roiled the country.

“Flames have engulfed our country. Flames of violence, flames of hatred, flames of false, distorted and twisted beliefs,” Rivlin wrote on Facebook in both Hebrew and Arabic.

His statement over the weekend came after two brutal incidents. Jewish ultranationalists are suspected of setting fire Friday to two houses in the West Bank village of Duma, burning to death an 18-month-old toddler, Ali Saad Dawabshah. The baby’s parents and 4-year-old brother remain in critical condition in burn units of Israeli hospitals and are reported to be fighting for their lives.

On Thursday, an ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed six Israelis at the Jerusalem gay pride parade, and one of the wounded, Shira Banki, 16, died Sunday night.

Rivlin's Facebook post received more than 3,000 responses, some expressing gratitude but many others denying that Jews could be terrorists and accusing Rivlin of being a “hypocrite” and “traitor” who deserves to die.

“Dirty traitor. Your end will be worse than (Ariel) Sharon’s,” said one response, referring to the former Israeli prime minister who died last year after spending eight years in a coma as a result of a stroke.

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Friday’s arson attack a “horrific, heinous act of terror,” thousands of demonstrators throughout the country took to the streets Sunday to protest what they consider the government's lenient policies that support and perpetuate such attacks.

Netanyahu pledged to step up West Bank police efforts to bring the suspects to justice, though many Palestinians and Israelis said such condemnations weren’t enough. The Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din, said the government has brought indictments in only 7% of cases of vandalism by suspected extremists

“Netanyahu offers his condolences, but we ask the defense minister and the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to restore security in the village of Duma and in all Palestinian villages,” said Nasser Dawabshah, the uncle of the slain toddler. “We want this to be the end of the suffering of our people.”

Protesters carried signs that said, “Enforce the law against hate crimes” and “Homophobia and Racism are the same kind of Violence,” referring to the stabbings at the gay pride parade.

A statement by Banki’s family said that “negligence” was responsible for their teenage daughter’s death, and that “the family expresses hope for less hatred and more tolerance.”

The alleged attacker, Yishai Shlissel, had been arrested for a previous stabbing rampage during the Jerusalem Pride Parade of 2005. He was released last month after serving a 10-year sentence.

Shmi Tal, a politician from the ruling Likud party, told Israel’s Channel 2 news that Rivlin’s comments of sympathy for the victims of the attacks proved that he was in need of “urgent hospitalization.”

“We are still dealing with the same problems that we faced 20 years ago,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israeli Democracy Institute and a former Knesset member, said Monday, referring to the assassination of Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin by an ultranationalist Jewish settler who opposed the Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative.

Rivlin, whose role as president is mostly ceremonial, has been one of the few Israeli officials to publicly denounce previous ultranationalist attacks that targeted Palestinian churches, mosques and private property.

Many fear he represents a diminishing liberalism in Israel, where 52% of teenagers identify as right wing, and among those, 48% condone or say they understand the rationale behind such attacks, according to a poll last month by the Rafi Smith Institute.

“The problem isn’t with the official politicians themselves, but the fact that we know most politicians from the right, and certainly the prime minister, ignore and turn a blind eye to the broader context in which actions like the killing of the toddler Ali take place,” said Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for the human rights group, B’tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.

“As long as the mainstream, moreover, doesn’t see phenomena like West Bank settlements and occupation as high priorities, the right wing can continue violate the law in order to achieve its political goals,” Michaeli said Monday.