The assassination on Wednesday of conservative superstar Charlie Kirk should serve as a wake-up call to the Israeli protest movement and justice system, both of which are in serious need of soul-searching. The upcoming High Holidays would be a perfect opportunity for genuine atonement, followed by concrete action to prevent a similar tragedy in the Jewish state.
Sadly, given the players involved, that’s probably not going to happen. A more likely scenario is that the incitement against the right-wing government in general and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu in particular will increase.
The vile response from progressives to Kirk’s targeted killing during an event at Utah Valley University is a clue. Though left-wing Israelis haven’t gone as far as some of their American counterparts—who actually celebrated and mocked the bloody murder—many have taken a stand that mimics a worrisome trend.
To discredit Kirk and smear his supporters, they’re engaging in a disingenuous twofer: on one hand claiming that he was an antisemite, which he wasn’t; on the other, highlighting the fact that the shooter’s parents are registered Republicans. As though the reason that the suspect, Tyler Robinson, possessed and knew how to use a rifle is the fault of that party’s defense of the “right to bear arms”—enshrined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Like liberals in the United States, for whom gun control is up there with abortion as a make-or-break political issue, Israelis with a similar bent have been sharing posts on social media saying that Kirk was a victim of his own ideology. Meanwhile, Kirk’s supporters at home and abroad are saying that Robinson came from a good home with Christian values, but was radicalized when he went off to college.
The details of Robinson’s motive and state of mind at the time of his capital crime are still murky. Yet, what the 22-year-old had engraved on one of the shell casings of his Mauser Model 98 bolt-action rifle—“Hey fascist! Catch!”—suggests the direction that his rage had taken.
It is such out-of-control anger at a figure whose opinions are antithetical to the cultural diktats of the chattering classes that Israel’s “anybody but Bibi” camp should be noting with concern. About itself, that is.
Instead, its leaders and adherents continue to spew hate-filled rhetoric—such as calling for the prime minister to be beheaded—and stepping up physically aggressive behavior. Take the riot earlier this month near Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, for example.
Demonstrators on a rampage burned tires in the road to disrupt traffic and set fire to municipal garbage bins. The flames from one of the trash cans not only spread to and destroyed a parked car, but forced the evacuation of several people in the adjacent apartment building.
The above incident was one of many acts of violence perpetrated by protesters since the instatement of the current Netanyahu-led government at the end of December 2022. The original impetus for the organized tantrums, heavily funded by foreign and domestic NGO’s, was, ostensibly, the government’s intention to reform the judicial system.
But participants, decrying the very existence of a coalition made up solely of right-wing parties, employed it as the latest excuse to delegitimize Netanyahu. Now that five election campaigns were over, they had cause to dust off the bullhorns and drums they’d deployed against him during the pandemic years. You know, as the only group permitted to congregate, for “democratic” protest purposes, while the rest of the population was in lockdown; or forced to keep a six-foot distance from fellow human beings.
Key among those who came out swinging on behalf of disruptive demonstrators illegally blocking highways and trying to shut down the economy was Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who announced in the summer of 2023: “There can be no effective protest without disturbing the public order.”
This is the same A.G. whose immediate reaction to the formation of the coalition whose leanings weren’t to her liking was to dump on “majority rule.” Yes, the very principle of it, in her warped worldview, “pushes other democratic values into a corner.”
What she really meant was that appointed officials such as herself are superior to and outrank elected ones, since the latter are chosen by riff-raff. That’s not how she articulated it, of course. But it’s exactly how she’s been conducting herself, in cahoots with a left-leaning Supreme Court and pliable State Attorney’s Office.
This is why the government has been trying, unsuccessfully, to exercise its power to sack her. It also explains the unchecked incitement against Netanyahu and legal-system leniency toward politically motivated violence—as long as it’s coming from the sector that holds Bibi responsible for Hamas’s genocidal invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023; blames him for the terrorist group’s refusal to release the remaining hostages; and demands that he “end the war.”
Targeting Netanyahu and his ministers with not-so-veiled threats on their lives has become integral to the protesters’ messaging and practices. In the process, it terrorizes the families of the targeted politicians and intimidates anyone else with a different opinion into silence at workplaces and on campuses.
It’s this type of atmosphere in the United States that spurred Charlie Kirk to create Turning Point USA and utilize the non-profit organization to educate about and counter false narratives from the left. It’s no accident that it ballooned into a massive movement—one that’s been growing by the minute since his death mere days ago.
Oppositionists in the Knesset, the courts and on the street need to rein in the radicals, not tolerate, defend and emulate them. They must take Kirk’s slaughter as a cautionary tale about the lack of left-wing red lines when it comes to vilifying not only Netanyahu, but all conservative pundits and members of the public.
Is cultivating an Israeli Tyler Robinson really the way they want their hostility to pan out?
