Hard-right MK’s bill against incitement to terror could incriminate him, his colleagues
New rules may spell trouble for MKs who have expressed support for Israeli who burned Palestinian family in West Bank; legislation ‘undergoing changes’ in committee, says spokesman
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
A controversial anti-incitement bill proposed by Religious Zionism MK Tzvi Sukkot could have unintended consequences, potentially landing prominent ultranationalist figures, including Sukkot himself, in judicial hot water, legal experts warned during a heated session of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Wednesday.
The bill seeks to expand on Israel’s current anti-terror law’s prohibition on expressing support and identification for acts of terrorism to include sympathy and encouragement for an individual who carried out a lethal terrorist act.
Its apparent primary aim is to curb incitement by Palestinians and Arab Israelis. In a statement, MK Sukkot linked the proposed amendment to the “decades of incitement… in schools and mosques” that preceded Hamas’s October 7 onslaught in southern Israel that started the current war.
This connection was made explicit on Wednesday by Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairman Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism), who claimed that updated incitement rules could allow for the prosecution of MK Ayman Odeh.
Appearing to cite a 2022 Channel 14 report, Rothman accused the head of the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al alliance of praising Latifa Abu-Hamid, the mother of several convicted terrorists, as a “heroine, the mother of heroes.”
The bill, which also aims to do away with the requirement to prove that a statement is likely to lead to an act of terrorism, would have allowed police to indict Odeh, he claimed.
But pushing back against the law, Hagar Shechter, an attorney with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, argued that Sukkot’s own rhetoric in support of convicted murderer Amiram Ben Uliel could run afoul of an expanded definition of incitement.
“If the law passes it could implicate MK Sukkot,” she said.
Ben Uliel is serving three life sentences plus 20 years for a 2015 firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma, in which Riham and Saad Dawabsha were killed along with their 18-month-old son, Ali Saad. Only the couple’s five-year-old son, Ahmed, survived the terror attack, with extensive burns.
Ben Uliel was found guilty of three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, arson and conspiring to commit a racially motivated crime, as part of a “terrorist act.”
Last September, 14 coalition lawmakers called for the easing of Ben Uliel’s prison conditions, arguing that his confession had been obtained through torture and that his extended stay in solitary confinement constituted “the most difficult incarceration conditions in the State of Israel.”
While Sukkot did not sign the letter, he did back the initiative, telling the Ynet news site that he felt Ben Uliel was a victim of an “injustice” and that there was a “problem with this conviction.”
Responding to Shechter, Sukkot, who was himself once detained on suspicion of taking part in the arson of a mosque in the northern West Bank, declared that he had “never supported Ben Uliel,” although he reiterated that he saw the convict’s treatment as “problematic.”
In her critique of the legislation, Shechter also argued that if the “probabilistic test” were no longer required to determine whether a statement meets the threshold for incitement, “the picture of Baruch Goldstein on the wall of another MK” could also suddenly become legally problematic.
Until several years ago, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir hung a photograph of Jewish mass-murderer Baruch Goldstein, perpetrator of a 1994 massacre of 29 Muslim worshipers at Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs, on the wall of his home.
Facing further criticism that the law was over-broad from both representatives of the Knesset legal advisor’s office and the Israel Democracy Institute, Sukkot appeared to backtrack slightly, saying he was open to further amending and clarifying the text.
The bill was also opposed by the Justice Ministry, which stated in a written opinion that it carried an “increased risk of selective and arbitrary enforcement” and could be “expected to result, most likely, in the over-criminalization of broad populations.”
Among those who could face further legal difficulties under the legislation is also Bentzi Gopstein, the head of the Lehava anti-miscegenation group, who was recently cleared of charges of inciting terror, the legal advisor’s office noted.
Speaking with The Times of Israel on Thursday, Shechter said that if Sukkot’s law passes it would have a chilling effect to the point that “any 13-year-old who writes a post to his five followers stating that Baruch Goldstein is the king would be a criminal.”
Such rhetoric may be “intolerable” but limitations on free speech need to be linked to serious threats to national security, she argued, such as statements inciting terror.
“If you don’t look at the circumstances, the content and the probability that such speech will bring about an act of terror, then for example Tzvi Sukkot himself” and other supporters of Ben-Uliel could be held liable, she said.
Supporters of Ben-Uliel who could potentially be affected by the bill include Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, who called him a “holy righteous man” during a 2023 fundraiser, Shechter indicated.
Contacted by The Times of Israel, Har-Melech said that she was unfamiliar with Sukkot’s legislation and repudiated violence against Palestinians.
“If an innocent person sits in prison, then he is righteous and holy in my eyes,” she said over WhatsApp, reiterating claims that Ben-Uliel was wrongfully convicted. “I certainly do not agree with the act [of arson].”
Several members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition have been found guilty of, investigated over, or accused of incitement.
Otzma Yehudit leader Ben Gvir was convicted for incitement to violence and supporting a terror group for distributing stickers that read “Expel the Arab enemy” and “Kahane was right.”
Otzma Yehudit MK Zvika Fogel was questioned by police last March after he explicitly backed extremist settlers who torched Palestinian homes and vehicles in the northern West Bank town of Huwara.
And Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, chairman of the Religious Zionism party, apologized after calling for the village to be “wiped out,” claiming he didn’t realize that the remarks could be interpreted as a military order.
During Wednesday’s debate, Both Sukkot and Rothman expressed an openness to revising the legislation regarding the use of a probabilistic test, Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute who testified at the hearing, told The Times of Israel.
They are also aware that “that this could potentially implicate them or their friends or their political allies,” but they “think it’s the price you have to pay,” he explained — adding that it was unclear if support for Ben-Uliel, who was found not guilty of membership in a terror organization, would necessarily be enough for politicians like Sukkot to be charged under the bill.
Asked for comment, a spokesman for Sukkot shared a statement asserting that “the rules of the game will soon change and any instigator could find himself behind bars.”
“Like any law that comes to the committee, it is changing here and there,” the spokesman added in a WhatsApp message.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
