Attorney-General Elyakim Rubenstein has instructed the police to launch an investigation against Tzfat (Safed) Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu - on charges of anti-Arab incitement. Following the suicide bus bombing attack two months ago at Meiron, near Tzfat, and in the wake of reports that an Arab doctor in the local hospital initially refused to treat Jewish victims, Rabbi Eliyahu said that the hospital should not hire Arab doctors without checking them. The hospital later said that the doctor did not refuse to treat the patients, but Rabbi Eliyahu said he heard the contrary from several eyewitnesses; he called for a full-scale inquiry into the incident.
Furthermore, after it was learned that two Arab students of a Tzfat college were told about the impending attack but did not inform the police, Rabbi Eliyahu called on the school to close its doors to Arabs. The attack itself, it was later revealed, was planned and executed by Israeli-Arab citizens. Rabbi Eliyahu, son of former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, said today that he does not retract his statements, nor will he be intimidated. He added that free speech is permitted in the State of Israel.