MK Issawi Freij (Meretz) announced on Saturday night that he intends to file a complaint against Israeli rap star Yoav Eliasi, better known by his stage name Hatzel, for incitement to violence.
The two had a back and forth on Facebook on Friday, after Freij published a post in which he urged Israelis to refrain from using the services of Livnat Poran, who heads an organization providing advice to Israelis on realizing their legal rights from the state, after Poran launched a new advertising campaign featuring Hatzel.
In response to Freij’s call, Hatzel published a post of his own in which he called the Meretz MK a “terrorism supporter”.
Freij is claiming that Hatzel’s post resulted in other Facebook users posting calls to “neutralize” Freij, depicting him as Hitler, and others.
"Eliasi has turned hatred and incitement into a business, sells it to customers who lack a moral backbone such as Livnat Poran, and tries to build himself up by using violence and encouraging it. I have no intention of standing aside in the face of the hate speech of someone who calls me a supporter of terrorism and turns his Facebook page into a center of spreading evil and hatred,” charged Freij.
Hatzel has turned into somewhat of a Facebook sensation in recent months, following his nationalist posts which have garnered a following among Israelis.
Recently, he posted a screenshot of an alleged Facebook conversation between himself and Meretz chairwoman Zehava Galon, in which she set terms by which she would leave Israel for good and convert to Islam. It later turned out that the rapper staged the conversation to make a point.
Previously, Hatzel noted that the murder of Richard Lakin, who died after being seriously wounded in a shooting attack on a bus in Jerusalem's southeastern Armon Hanatziv, proved that terrorists view all Jews as targets, regardless of political opinion. The comment was made in context of Lakin's work as an activist advocating for coexistence.
He was later attacked over the post by opposition chairman MK Yitzhak Herzog.
"To Hatzel and those like him, all those disgusting people who taunt and despise, I say - be ashamed of yourselves, bullies. You bring trouble to the Jews. You are violently gnawing away at the foundations of the democracy and the security of the state," stated Herzog.