Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly condemned violent protesters against his government on Wednesday after they started fires in Jerusalem, saying they were “just like fascist militias.”
Netanyahu, who rarely draws parallels between his political detractors and fascists, delivered the rebuke in a video message shortly after protesters started a fire that consumed an automobile on Harlap Street near the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem.
Police arrested two individuals, an 83-year-old man and another man, on suspicion of starting the fire. On Wednesday, thousands of protesters again convened for rallies against Netanyahu in Jerusalem, calling on him to stop the war with Hamas in Gaza and resign.
“They said they would surround my house, the Prime Minister’s Residence, with a ring of fire. Just like fascist militias. So they lit a fire on Harlap Street, right around the corner, and this fire also set fire to a car,” Netanyahu said in the video.
He added that protest in a democracy is legitimate, but that he is the focus of “funded, organized, political demonstrations against the government, which have broken every boundary.”
Addressing the violent protesters, he said: “You talk and act exactly like fascists.”
“What’s happening here is simple—there is no enforcement, and when there is no enforcement, there is escalation,” Netanyahu said. “And indeed, they started by breaking through checkpoints and then trying to break through fences, and then they shot a flare that almost burned a security guard to death near my home” in Caesarea.
Four protesters were charged in December with an act of terrorism for firing a flare at Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea.
“Where is the enforcement? It doesn’t exist. There is no selective enforcement here—there is no enforcement here at all, and this must change. This is what I demand from the enforcement agencies. This is what the people of Israel demand in order to maintain democracy here,” said Netanyahu in the video.
The car that was torched belonged to Yoav Bar Yishai, a reserve IDF captain, Netanyahu said. He is the grandson of Yaakov Ne’eman, a former finance minister. Bar Yishai has served about 260 days in the reserves this year, completing three tours in Gaza and in Lebanon, according to Netanyahu.
