tatement by PM Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening :

“In a democracy, demonstrations are legitimate. However, what is happening in the financed, organized and political protests against the Government, which have crossed every line, is that they are vandalizing property, blocking roads, making millions of citizens miserable, and chasing after elected officials and their children, on their way to kindergarten and school.

They are threatening to murder me – the Prime Minister, and my family – on a daily basis; they are also setting fires. They said that they will surround my home, the home of the Prime Minister, with a ring of fire, just like fascist gangs.

They lit a fire on Charlap Street, right next to the house, and this fire spread to a car that belongs to Yoav Bar Yishai, a major in the IDF reserves, the grandson of Yaakov Ne’eman who was an exemplary Finance Minister and Justice Minister in the State of Israel.

This year Yoav has served around 260 days, in three rounds, in both Gaza and Lebanon. He serves as an officer in an elite Armored Corps unit. He has three daughters. They burned his car. His wife cannot take the kids. Then they volunteered to finance the purchase of a new car. Don’t do any favors. Don’t make us laugh. You talk about democracy? You talk and behave just like fascists.

What is happening here is simple. There is no enforcement, and when there is no enforcement, there is escalation. Indeed, they started by breaking through roadblocks and afterwards attempted to break through fences, and afterwards fired flares that almost burned a security guard to death near my house, and now they are making a ring of fire.

Where is the enforcement? It doesn’t exist. There is no selective enforcement, there is no enforcement at all. This must change. This is what I demand of the enforcement authorities. This is what the people of Israel demand in order for there to be democracy here.”