AG, top cop vow to counter incitement after threats to Gantz

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and interim Israel Police commissioner Motti Cohen on Sunday said that law enforcers have a zero-tolerance policy toward threats or incitement to violence.

Their joint statement came a day after the Knesset Guard increased security for Blue and White party leader MK Benny Gantz in the wake of online threats made against him, and alleged incitement against his party.

The statement said Mandelblit and Cohen are “committed to working with law enforcement agencies to bring about prompt, effective and determined treatment of statements that raise suspicions of criminal offenses of threats or incitement to violence.”

While preserving the right to freedom of speech, “it is clear that expressions that include threats or incitement to violence, or physical violence, will not be tolerated,” they wrote.

“In accordance with the law enforcement policy applicable to such serious cases, they will be reviewed and dealt with in a thorough and professional manner.”

On Saturday the Knesset decided to increase Gantz’s security detail due to a number of death threats made against the former army chief of staff following last week’s national election.

The Blue and White party said it had informed the Knesset Guard of numerous online threats made against Gantz including direct calls for physical violence. The decision to add two additional security guards to Gantz’s detail came after he was verbally attacked on his way to deliver a speech Saturday night.

Gantz, after accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sowing “hatred and division” in the public, later tweeted a photo of a Facebook status that called “to murder Gantz in Rabin Square” and wrote: “Netanyahu, stop the wild incitement. Don’t say you didn’t know.”

On Friday, after photoshopped pictures were posted on social media of Blue and White and Joint List leaders wearing Palestinian keffiyehs in the manner of Yasser Arafat, Gantz accused Netanyahu of inciting violence in the wake of the Knesset vote.

“The incitement to violence crosses every line. If we don’t wake up, the next political murder is around the corner,” he wrote on Facebook hours after an anti-Netanyahu protester was assaulted in a separate incident.

Monday’s election was the third in less than a year in which Netanyahu and the parties that support him failed to win a majority in the Knesset, but that saw Gantz and his supporters also lack a clear path of forming a coalition.