Woman files police complaint against Likud MK who called to ‘trample’ coalition
Resident of northern Israel says she felt ‘real fear’ after listening to David Amsalem’s fiery tirade; Meretz MK urges Knesset Ethics Committee to probe comments
A resident of northern Israel filed a police complaint Saturday against a Likud lawmaker who appeared to threaten to lock up and “trample” legal officials.
In an audio conversation with Twitter users on the site’s Spaces feature earlier this week, MK David Amsalem railed at the current coalition, saying he would bar its members from parliament grounds if he were Knesset speaker.
“They can go to their Supreme Court. We’ll also replace the judges there immediately — on the day we win… We will trample them,” Amsalem said.
He vowed that if former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party regains power, “we will drop laws on their heads, and they won’t recover from [it] in 20 years.”
The Likud MK also lashed out at the legal advisers of government ministries.
“These are wolves that devour everything that moves — if we don’t know how to restrain them and put them in a pen, they’ll ultimately eat us again and then the country will head toward the abyss. That’s what I believe,” Amsalem said.
The woman who filed the complaint told the Walla news site that she felt “real fear” from Amsalem’s fiery tirade.
“The feeling I had when I heard these things was real fear. If we replace the word ‘leftists’ with the word ‘Jews,’ then this is clear Nazi rhetoric, and the threats of trampling are not an analogy, but Amsalem’s plan of action,” she told Walla, while requesting to remain unnamed. (Her complaint followed initial inaccurate reports of some of what Amsalem had said.)
“Worse, his words, which incite real violence, are heard by many… and I ask for the intervention of the law to stop the incitement, threats, and intimidation,” she added.
If police were to announce charges against the Amsalem, he would be entitled to parliamentary immunity.
On Friday, Meretz MK Michal Rozin asked the Knesset Ethics Committee to look into Amsalem’s comments.
This is the first complaint to be lodged with the ethics panel since its formation this week; however, it is not clear if the panel can legally function amid an opposition boycott of most Knesset committees.
The Times of Israel Community.