After dovish artists harassed, president urges unity

Two dovish Israeli artists have been harassed by hooligans since last week’s “stormy” election campaign, sparking official concern over post-poll polarization in Israeli society.

Singer and peace activist Noa says she was threatened and abused when she returned from a trip abroad last week, after the right triumphed in an election marred by personal attacks and racial slurs.

Known in Israel by her full name of Achinoam Nini, Noa wrote on Facebook that she was heckled by onlookers after arriving at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport from Italy.

“Here’s Achinoam Nini… enemy of Israel,” she quoted them as shouting. “We’ll deal with you like Geffen!”

Singer and author Yehonatan Geffen was attacked at his home in central Israel over the weekend by a man who tried to punch him and called him “a traitor and a leftist” after Geffen described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s March 17 election victory as the “Nakba” of the Israeli peace movement.

Nakba (Arabic for “Catastrophe”) is the term used by Palestinians for the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948.

National police chief Yohanan Danino said police were investigating the “very serious” incident as a top priority and called for rapprochement between supporters of the right and left.

“We must reunite after the elections, understand that we live in the same country,” he told public radio.

“We must be responsible,” he added. “Words can become deeds.”

President Reuven Rivlin also called for calm.

“We have been through a stormy election,” his office quoted him as telling first-time MPs from the Kulanu party during a second day of soundings on forming a new coalition government.

“As publicly elected officials, it is in your power to bring about reconciliation,” he said.

Noa, 45, wrote in a blog post that waking up to the victory of right-wing and religious parties was “a black day.”

“I was depressed and devastated after months of hard work and hoped that this time we would finally rid ourselves of Netanyahu,” she wrote in English.

“To think that his horrible racist statements in the last days were those that gave him the victory! It killed me.”

Spurring supporters of his Likud to mobilize on polling day, a Facebook page belonging to Netanyahu warned “the right-wing government is in danger… Arab voters are coming out in droves.”

The comment earned the Israeli premier a sharp rebuke from the White House.

Noa’s Facebook page lists several organizations for Arab-Jewish coexistence among causes she supports, including the Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel, Peace Now, Ta’ayush Arab Jewish Partnership and grassroots dialogue group OneVoice.

In 2009, she and Arab-Israeli singer Mira Awad represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest with a duet entitled “There Must Be Another Way.” They came 16th.

OneVoice was named in a Likud petition to the Central Elections Committee claiming that it was indirectly funding Netanyahu’s election opponents, but the complaint was dismissed.

Other intellectuals identified with the left enraged Israeli traditionalists in the run-up to the election.

Painter and writer Yair Garbuz inflamed emotions with comments at an election rally which were seen as demeaning to Israelis of North African and Middle Eastern descent and mocking Jewish religious beliefs.

Right-wing voters, he said, were “those who shout ‘Death to the Arabs,’ thieves and bribe-takers, amulet-kissers, idol-worshippers and those who make obeisance at the graves of saints.”

Dramatist Joshua Sobol dismissed as “stupid” the widespread practice of kissing the mezuzah — a small roll of scriptural verse affixed to the door frames of Jewish homes.