Netanyahu shares condemnation of display of severed heads with his face at anti-government rally

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemns a display of masks bearing his face surrounding a protester wearing faux-bloody bandages at an anti-government demonstration in Tel Aviv this evening.

“This needs to be said in a clear voice. The severed heads, as well as the protests today, have nothing to do with the hostages. On the contrary, these are people who decided to sacrifice the hostages in an attempt to overthrow the government,” the conservative Tikva Forum writes in a post shared by Netanyahu’s official Twitter account.

“In a civilized country, there would already be dozens of people arrested for inciting murder. It is unclear where the Shin Bet is when it comes to these clear and dangerous representations of murder,” the group writes, adding that it hopes tensions between Netanyahu and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar “do not affect the Shin Bet’s positions on everything related to the prime minister’s security.”

In a separate statement, a spokesperson for Netanyahu’s Likud party calls the protest display “madness,” asserting that it “represents incitement to murder the prime minister and behead him.”

“Where is the enforcement of the attorney general and Ronen Bar?” the spokesman asks, attaching a photo of the scene, in which a shirtless man wearing bloodied bandages on his chest and head can be seen lying still on the street clutching an Israeli flag.

Surrounding the man’s head are several masks of Netanyahu, each with a sticker bearing a slogan such as “guilty” or “danger.”

Netanyahu and his political allies have long complained about incitement against him and his family, pointing fingers at the justice system, law enforcement, and the attorney general for what they say is unchecked violent speech by members of the public.

The prime minister’s March 21 decision to fire Bar, which came in the middle of a Shin Bet investigation into the dealings of the prime minister’s close aides in the Qatargate scandal, prompted opposition parties and government watchdog groups to file petitions to the High Court of Justice seeking to halt the termination.

They accused Netanyahu of trying to stymie the probe and of firing Bar for political reasons, and requested that the court reverse the decision since, they argue, it was made with a conflict of interest and out of ulterior motives.

During a press conference last Sunday, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid called on Netanyahu to halt incitement against Bar before it leads to “political murder.”