Police question right-wing agitator who blocked cars of former top justice, ex-PM

Police questioned right-wing activist and provocateur Mordechai David on Sunday evening after he blocked the cars of a former Supreme Court president and an ex-prime minister, Hebrew outlets reported.

There was no formal comment from police. Tel Aviv police had reportedly summoned David for questioning Saturday night, then cancelled the interrogation the next morning, only to summon him again hours later.

David and a number of other activists blocked the car of former prime minister Ehud Barak in the city on Saturday night, with David calling Barak, a former IDF chief and Israel’s most decorated soldier, “a nothing.”

They pulled a similar stunt with retired judge Aharon Barak days prior, preventing him from exiting a Tel Aviv parking lot after he gave a speech at a conference Thursday evening.

David opened the door to Aharon Barak’s car and filmed himself calling the 89-year-old the “Khamenei of our generation,” referring to Iran’s supreme leader. “Lucky for us, his generation has passed. We are the new generation, the generation of the messianic age,” David said in the recording.

The Movement for Quality Government, which hosted the conference where the former judge spoke, filed a police complaint against David following the incident, Haaretz reported.

In a video uploaded to X on Sunday, David claimed the investigation against him constituted “selective enforcement” and said it was launched solely because police chief Danny Levy caved to “pressure from the left.”

He further alleged that the top cop “intervened unlawfully” and ordered Tel Aviv District Police Commander Haim Sargaroff to bring him in for questioning.

A day after David and other activists blocked off Aharon Barak’s car, Ynet reported that police sought to interrogate those involved on suspicion of disturbing public order.

Sunday marked the first time David was brought in for questioning regarding the incident.

Aharon Barak, a Holocaust survivor, is internationally respected and is seen as Israel’s preeminent jurist. Within Israel, he has long been vilified by right-wing leaders for his judicial activism when he led the country’s top court in 1995-2006, and is blamed by many in that camp for what they view as the current ills of the judicial system.

In January 2024, he was tasked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be an ad hoc judge on behalf of Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague as a member of the 15-judge panel hearing South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. He largely defended Israel’s conduct in the war in that position, before eventually resigning for “personal reasons.”