Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu condemned a protest in Tel Aviv where demonstrators displayed masks of his face surrounding a protester wrapped in faux-bloody bandages during an anti-government rally.
“This needs to be said in a clear voice. The severed heads, as well as the protests today, have nothing to do with the hostages. On the contrary, these are people who decided to sacrifice the hostages in an attempt to overthrow the government,” the conservative Tikva Forum wrote in a post that Netanyahu’s official Twitter account shared.
“In a civilized country, there would already be dozens of people arrested for inciting murder. It is unclear where the Shin Bet is when it comes to these clear and dangerous representations of murder,” the group added, expressing hope that the tensions between Netanyahu and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar “do not affect the Shin Bet’s positions on everything related to the prime minister’s security.”
In a separate statement, a spokesperson for Netanyahu’s Likud party called the demonstration “madness” and insisted that it “represents incitement to murder the prime minister and behead him.”
“Where is the enforcement of the attorney general and Ronen Bar?” the spokesperson asked, sharing a photograph showing a shirtless protester covered in bloodied bandages lying motionless on the street, clutching an Israeli flag.
Around the protester’s head, multiple Netanyahu masks were placed on the ground, each bearing a sticker with slogans like “guilty” and “danger.”
Netanyahu and his supporters had long voiced concerns about what they described as ongoing incitement against him and his family, repeatedly blaming the justice system, law enforcement agencies, and the attorney general for allowing violent rhetoric from the public to go unchecked.
The prime minister’s March 21 decision to fire Ronen Bar, which took place during an active Shin Bet investigation into the conduct of Netanyahu’s close aides in the Qatargate affair, led opposition parties and watchdog groups to file petitions with the High Court of Justice in an effort to block the dismissal.
Petitioners accused Netanyahu of acting to obstruct the investigation and firing Bar for political reasons, urging the court to cancel the decision on the grounds that it was motivated by a conflict of interest and improper intentions.
During a press conference last Sunday, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid demanded that Netanyahu end his attacks against Ronen Bar, warning that such rhetoric could soon result in “political murder.”
{Matzav.com Israel}