Detectives from Lahav 433's Cyber Unit on Thursday arrested a resident of Binyamina, on suspicion of threatening to murder Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The investigation reveals that the suspect threatened Netanyahu on Telegram. After his arrest, he was brought in for questioning at the Cyber Unit offices.
The police say that at the end of the investigation and according to its findings, he will be brought for a remand hearing in the Magistrate's Court in Rishon Lezion.
At the beginning of the week, Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs showed ministers at the cabinet meeting a video with threats and incitement against Netanyahu by protest activists against the government who were heard saying, among other things: "Netanyahu is a traitor, he is a devil, he is cancer."
Netanyahu said: "We are witnessing a flood of explicit threats of murder and violence against the Prime Minister and his family, against ministers, against public officials. These are not only clear criminal offenses - they also constitute a direct and explicit threat to democracy. Nothing real is being done - I am directing this to the Attorney General and the State Attorney, it's their job."
He added, "In the face of this flood, a quarter of a hesitant action is not taken. While we saw that during the term of the previous government, and even before that, when there was the Sham Trial Affair from the other side - the arrest of a mother with children, on Shabbat. A letter, which we all condemn, to Prime Minister Bennett - arrest and imprisonment. But it is impossible to compare at all the enormous flood of explicit threats that are criminal offenses, confronted by inaction, and also confronted by another thing - the silence of the officials. We did not hear condemnations. Condemnations should also be made. But the officials do not open their mouths, they do not condemn. What we have here is legitimacy for an attack on democracy, and we have a normalization of political assassination, and everyone feels that there is also selective enforcement here."
"Because we saw that against offenses, if there were any at all, far less, against the right-wing factors, against the settlers, against the haredim, against the Ethiopians - all the power of the law is applied there, in the strictest interpretation of various sections that were recruited for the arrest of 14- or 15-year-old girls, against the minimal roadblocks compared to what is happening today, all the weight of the law is applied. It didn't happen gradually, that's not true. I don't accept that. It happened when we returned to power, and then it happened with tremendous force. It started with protests in Balfour in Jerusalem, through protests against the then Attorney General in Petah Tikva, protests on the reform issue, and now protests during the war," Netanyahu emphasized.
According to him, "The topic changes every time, but it is directed against the right - and the enforcement is not equal. It is not equal and does not change gradually, it changes suddenly. Of course, it also goes and intensifies because the boundaries are constantly being tested. So it is allowed to place a grenade, it is allowed to send torches, it is allowed to commit violent offenses against police officers, it is allowed to block roads with fire - it is allowed and allowed and permitted. There is a normalization of the violation of democracy, there is a normalization of political assassination. We will address this next week."
"This event that happened in the United States, many said it was writing on the wall. We see the writing on the wall, we see the writing in the squares, we see the writing on social media. We all see it, and the ministers here around the cabinet table unanimously say: 'This must receive a real and equal response.' This hasn't happened until now," he concluded.
