Yamina MK says she’s receiving death threats against herself and family

Coalition whip Idit Silman said Sunday that she received phone calls and text messages with explicit threats to the lives of her and her family earlier in the day.

Silman, a member of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party, said she reached out to the Knesset Guard and police. She has been the target of threats over the last month with some on the right accusing her and the Yamina party of betraying the right by forming a unity government to out Benjamin Netanyahu after 12 years of rule.

“The threats against me and my family are the result of the planned and unprecedented attacks by opposition members. Put an end to this dangerous and unceasing incitement,” she said in a statement.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid also called on the opposition, now led by Netanyahu, to condemn the threats, saying they crossed a red line.

“The threats against the lives of Idit Silman and her children are a red line and I call on all members of the opposition to condemn them,” Lapid tweeted. “Disputes between the opposition and coalition are logical and accepted, but messages to her mobile phone are dangerous and a crime.”

Earlier in the month Silman faced a wave of protests outside her home and repeated threats as Yamina decided to join a coalition with seven other right-wing, centrist, left-wing and Arab parties.

Silman was followed in her car and said that people have threatened to “slaughter” her and stopped her sixth-grader son outside school to tell him “your mother will burn in hell.”

The Knesset Guard upped the security around Silman and other Yamina  lawmakers after they were targeted by activists.

There have also been near-daily protests outside Bennett’s home and outside those of other lawmakers.

Last week New Hope party MK Ze’ev Elkin — formerly Netanyahu’s confidant and a Likud cabinet minister —  accused Netanyahu of sending “thugs” to protest outside his home and frighten his children.

Netanyahu and his supporters have tried to argue that the government is illegitimate as Yammina backtracked on a promise not to sit with Lapid and the Arab Ra’am.

“When you create a discourse of hatred and division, it’s legitimate, but when others think differently than you and criticize you — that’s illegitimate,” said Elkin, the housing minister, in comments directed at opposition leader Netanyahu. “When there are demonstrations outside your official residence, that’s illegitimate. But when you send thugs — using party funds — to my home and the homes of others here, to wake up a 5-year-old girl at 11 p.m. to frighten her, that’s legitimate.”