Bar-Ilan professor charged with incitement

Hillel Weiss cursed commander during Hebron eviction, urged "acts of Pinchas" to stop gay parade.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
hillel weiss 298.88 (photo credit: Bar Ilan-University [file])
hillel weiss 298.88
(photo credit: Bar Ilan-University [file])
A Bar-Ilan University professor was indicted Wednesday in a Jerusalem court on two charges of incitement to violence for cursing an IDF commander during the eviction of Jewish families from Hebron and for remarks he made against a planned Jerusalem gay pride parade. Prof. Hillel Weiss was charged with incitement to violence, intimidation and offending a public official for wishing the IDF commander in Hebron dead during the forced removal of two Jewish families from the city's marketplace last year. "May your mother be bereaved, your wife be widowed, your children be orphaned and may you be struck down in the next war and any memory of you be erased," Weiss told the IDF's Hebron Brigade Commander, Col. Yehuda Fuchs, in the incident, which was caught on tape and repeatedly broadcast on Israeli media. Following a public uproar, Weiss apologized for his remarks, but military officials said it was not sincere. Weiss was also indicted on a second count of incitement to violence for a public remark he made a year earlier against a planned gay pride parade in Jerusalem. He told Channel 1 that he endorsed "all means to wipe out this abomination from the holy city of Jerusalem, even acts of Pinchas," a reference to the biblical priest Pinchas Ben-Eliezer who stabbed and killed an Israelite and a Midianite woman while they were copulating. Bar-Ilan spokesman Shmuel Elgrably on Wednesday said the university condemns the "severe" remarks made by Weiss, noting that a committee appointed by university president Moshe Kaveh had previously admonished the professor for his actions. "Hillel Weiss was indicted today as a civilian and he will be held accountable to law for his actions like any other civilian in the State of Israel if he is proven guilty," Elgrably said in a written statement. "We are certain that the courtroom is the proper place to clarify the charges filed against him."