AG orders police investigation into threats to IDF chief

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Thursday instructed police to launch an investigation into demonstrators who a day earlier were captured on camera threatening IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot over the manslaughter conviction of soldier Elor Azaria.

Protesters verbally attacked Eisenkot outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, where Azaria’s verdict was delivered, shouting slogans including, among other things, “Gadi watch out, Rabin is looking for a friend,” referring to former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a right-wing extremist in 1995.

Azaria was filmed on March 24, 2016, shooting Palestinian assailant Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif in the head, nearly 15 minutes after al-Sharif had been shot and wounded during an attempt to stab another soldier in Hebron.

Mandelblit stressed that “there is no place for expressions of incitement, not against judges, not against IDF officers, and not against anybody else in law enforcement or in general,” according to an announcement from his office.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSeCa97zuHI

Eisenkot on Tuesday, a day before the verdict, rejected claims by Azaria’s supporters that Azaria should be seen as a child that the nation is committed to protecting. Alluding to Azaria, Eisenkot said that “an 18-year-old man serving in the army is not ‘everyone’s child.’ He is a fighter, a soldier, who must dedicate his life to carrying out the tasks we give him. There can be no confusion about this.”

According to social media tracking firm Vigo, in addition to the slogans shouted at the trial, some 2,500 posts put online as of Thursday afternoon threatened Eisenkot.

In the face of strong condemnation of Azaria’s actions by top military brass, including Eisenkot and then-defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, far-right supporters and some politicians had accused the defense establishment of abandoning one of its own.

The verdict also drew a flurry of threatening messages against military judge Maya Heller, who headed the tribunal that convicted Azaria.

Security around Heller and the other two judges on the panel, Lt. Col. Carmel Wahabi and Lt. Col. Yaron Sitbo, was tightened on Wednesday, amid reports of thousands of threats of violence against them on social media and elsewhere.

Police arrested two people on suspicion of calling for attacks against the judges. Both were released to house arrest Thursday, on condition that they stay off social media and keep away from Heller.

Supreme Court President Miriam Naor on Thursday evening excoriated those leveling what she called “unbridled attacks” on justices.

“The president of the Supreme Court and her fellow judges cannot stand idly by in the face of the unprecedented attacks and the threats directed at the judges of the military court,” she said in a statement.

Azaria faces a sentencing hearing next week, with many politicians calling for him to be pardoned.