Dr. Michael Ben Ari attended the opening of his court case this morning at the Magistrates Court in Kfar Saba, “I told them that I did not come here as a defendant, but as a prosecutor. The concept of October 7th came to be on the dirty floors of Shay Nitzan’s office. I warned in the most clear terms as possible. I repeated this dozens of times. I said they [the Arabs] are a ‘murderous nation.’ What did they think? I see fire, slaughtering, babies burning. The only thing I regret is that I stopped screaming and didn’t scream till my voice reached as high as the heavens.”

Ben Ari warned against the attitude presented in the indictment, “they want to say that there is no enemy. I cannot keep quiet. I have waited for this trial to get our freedom of speech and right of existence back. When we cannot say that there is an enemy, they are practically saying, ‘you are going to be slaughtered. But you have to keep quiet about it.’ I am defending my right to present reality as is. This is going to be a very interesting and important trial.”

“The state attorney is threatening that I will go to jail. Maybe they will send me for re-education in Siberia? In North Korea? There are some prisons there that provide re-education,” Ben Ari adds sarcastically.

“This gang must know that they have persecuted me for years. They have arrested me, taken my fingerprints, threatened my children, sent policemen after me for every silly nonsense. What I will say in court is a war for our existence. The state attorney’s parties are over.”

When Ben Ari was asked about the public support he is receiving these days, he replied, "The love I get on the street is not what interests me, but my commitment to my people. Fortunately, I also get positive feedback from people on the street, but the main thing is my fight for these people. I blame the state attorney’s office for turning this discourse into a police procedure. This is a North Korean court case."