The police's National Unit for Investigating International and Serious Crimes (known by the acronym Yachbal) summoned at least two hareidi-religious Internet journalists for questioning Thursday morning. The two – Yishai Cohen of Kikar Hashabat and Yaki Adamker of Behadrei Haredim – were informed that they are suspected of incitement.
The websites, which are directed at hareidi audiences, featured reports about the arrests of two men in Beit Shemesh, on suspicion of printing and distributing posters showing Jerusalem District Commander Niso Shacham in Nazi uniform and comparing him to Adolf Hitler. The reports were accompanied by a graphic reproduction of the poster in question – and this, police told the journalists, means that the websites participated in the incitement.
The investigators tried to find out what the journalists' sources are and where they received the graphics.
A well-informed source told Arutz Sheva that news teams awaited the journalists outside the police station. "The police invited the media in advance, to complete the show," the source said. "How is it that all of the media broadcast the graphic and only the hareidi journalists were arrested?"
Police Commissioner Lt. Gen. Yochanan Danino said that this week that the poster depicting Niso Shacham as Adolf Hitler was "nauseating" and "undermines the foundations of democracy."
Strangely, when a leftist blogger recently depicted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in SS uniform and called for "a field trial" against him – it took a complaint by a Knesset Member for police to launch an investigation, and the State Attorney decided that the publication did not constitute incitement.