Gov’t focus on incitement against Netanyahu after Trump assassination attempt, protest video

"Nothing real has been done" the "flood of explicit threats of murder" against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family, which are "not just clear crimes" but also "a direct and explicit threat against democracy," Netanyahu said during Sunday's weekly government meeting on Sunday, a day after an assassination attempt on former US President and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The government will hold a meeting next Sunday with the heads of Israel's law enforcement agencies, in which they will be "required to present all of the relevant data regarding enforcement acts, including both police investigations, and indictments for incitement to murder of public officials in general and the prime minister in particular," according to a statement from the prime minister's office.

The discussion began with government secretary Yossi Fuchs presenting 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.

According to a statement from the prime minister's office, a number of ministers spoke, after which the prime minister addressed the meeting in a speech that his office videotaped and circulated late Sunday afternoon.

Insinuation that Baharav-Miari has been lax on enforcing issues

In addition to accusing the attorney general and state attorney for "doing nothing real" to counter the threats, Netanyahu criticized "the senior officials," who according to him "do not open their mouths, do not condemn."

"What there is here is legitimization for an attack on democracy, and there is a normalization of political murder, and everyone here feels that there is selective enforcement," Netanyahu said. He went on to claim that enforcement agencies had acted far more forcefully against right-wing people, settlers, haredim, and Ethiopians, than against protestors against him and his government.

The prime minister did not provide evidence to back up his claims, and the Israel Police and other law enforcement agencies have insisted that enforcement has indeed been equal. The prime minister also did not address the fact that unlike some of the protests by haredim and Israelis of Ethiopian descent in recent years, the protests against his governments have been nonviolent – and did not include vandalism or attacks against police officers or other officials. The prime minister also has not addressed dozens of instances of physical violence by his supporters against protestors during the past 18 months.

A number of ministers in a statement prior to the government meeting warned that what they claimed was incitement against Netanyahu would lead to a similar result.

According to a number of reports, the discussion on the topic lasted nearly two hours, and some ministers, including National Security Minister MK Itamar Ben-Gvir and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, also blamed Attorney-General Gali Baharav Miara for failing to enforce the law against the instances of incitement, and called for her removal. 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.

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.