Former Meretz Knesset Member Naomi Chazan led left-wing protestors in shouts for a "civilian uprising" against violence during a demonstration Thursday night outside the home of Prof. Ze'ev Sternhell, who was lightly injured in a pipe bomb blast last week.
Similar use of the term "civilian uprising" by right-wing elements have been met by the media and political leaders with calls for charges of incitement.
"This is the beginning of a civilian uprising," Chazan told more than 100 demonstrators. She did not define what she meant by "uprising" but added, "If violence has become the norm, we have become lost."
Professor Sternhell has advocated violence by Arabs and Israeli security forces against the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. Police say written announcements found near the site of the attack led them to suspect members of the right in the attack.
According to the OMedia website, the police claims led Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe, head of the Task Force to Save the People and the Land (HaMateh L'Hatzalat Ha'Am V'HaAretz) organization, to ask Attorney General Menachem Mazuz on Thursday to investigate the possibility that "the Jewish Department" of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) is still employing agent provocateurs such as Avishai Raviv, in order to slander the right in general and Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria in particular. Raviv's mission was to encourage acts of right-wing extremism to discredit opposition to the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority.
Those efforts included a poster in which Prime Minister Yitzhak was seen wearing a Nazi uniform, following talk about removing Jews from Judea and Samaria. Raviv befriended Yigal Amir and allegedly encouraged him to be an extremist, leading up to the assassination of Rabin in 1995, for which Amir is serving a life sentence.
Referring to the attack on Sternhell, Rabbi Wolpe added, "The timing and manner of the action leaves no room for doubt that the hand of a provocateur was behind this, in order to enable contemptible attacks on the settlers and prepare public opinion for execution of the agreement for their expulsion from their land and its transfer to terrorists."
Wolpe also asked the attorney-general to give his opinion on Sternhell's remarks, saying Sternhell "incited Arabs to attack residents of the settlements, and we have not heard to this day that he is being investigated for his words."
Wolpe's letter to Mazuz was written before The Land of Israel Task Force announced Thursday that it had filed its request with the attorney general, asking him to investigate Sternhell for incitement to racism, incitement to violence, and slander against a community.