Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel sent a letter to the Attorney General to open an investigation on suspicion of incitement following an article written by Eyal Megged published yesterday in Haaretz entitled "Uri Ariel's god is a butcher".
In a letter to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, Minister Ariel noted "the article expresses harsh, inflammatory, and offensive verbiage that goes far beyond what is accepted and appropriate in the context of freedom of expression in a democratic state.
"It is only natural that writers, intellectuals, and journalists will express criticism and even harsh criticism of elected officials in the framework of democracy and freedom of expression, but here it is clear that the legitimate and permissible line was crossed," Ariel added.
The article contained a number of particularly harsh expressions against the Minister, including "scorn of the memory of the Holocaust, and Ariel is the chief scorner,"; "The Eichmann of the animals", and "Ariel (or perhaps Samael, the Angel of Death) is heartless and bloodthirsty."
"Comparing a minister in Israel who is a son of a Holocaust survivor who survived the inferno in Europe to the enemy of the Jews Adolf Eichmann, and death wishes to a minister in the Israeli government and other harsh expressions and incitement, cannot be protected under freedom of expression," Ariel wrote to Mandelblit.