The formation of the new government in Israel unleashes threats unprecedented since the death of Rabin

Right-wing protesters at a protest against the incorporation of Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked into the alternative government, on May 30 in Tel Aviv.Sebastian Scheiner / AP

Israel is experiencing a climate of bitter polarization, unprecedented since the dates prior to the assassination of Prime Minister Isaac Rabin in 1995. The agreement between eight opposition parties to form a new government, which is preparing to receive the confidence of the Knesset (Parliament ) in the coming days, has generated a wave of threats against members of the new coalition from the ranks of extremist groups, allegedly encouraged by right-wing leaders and prominent rabbis. The director of the Shin Bet (internal security service), Nadav Agraman, has warned in an unusual public message that “the speech of incitement to violence, especially in social networks, can lead some individuals to commit actions with results mortal ”, according to the investigations of its agents,and he has called on political leaders to lower the tone of their speeches and call their supporters to containment.

The acting prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, about to be removed from power after 12 consecutive years in office, hastened this Sunday to acknowledge receipt of the message released on Saturday night by the head of the security services.

"We condemn incitement to violence wherever it comes from, despite the fact that the other side (the opposition) does not condemn it," he proclaimed at a meeting of his party's parliamentary group, the conservative Likud.

"But it cannot be understood that when political criticism comes from the right they speak of incitement to violence, and when it comes from the left it is freedom of expression," he questioned the director of Shin Ben in a veiled way.

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Although Netanyahu cited threats against him and his family from the Knesset during opposition rallies over the past year, the main targets of the current intimidation campaign are right-wing leaders who have joined the alternative coalition pact. Images have burned of the call to be the new head of the Government, the ultra-nationalist Naftali Bennet, and of his

number two,

former minister Ayelet Shaked, who has also suffered repeated escraches along with other deputies from her group. Anonymous death threats have been received by the family of Gideon Saar, former Likud leader and now expected minister in the new opposition unity government. And another member of the opposition coalition, the deputy of Meretz (pacifist left) Tamar Zandberg, has seen how an obituary with her name was published.

The security expert Hezi Kalo, who was director of the Shin Bet intelligence service, told Israeli state radio on Sunday that the current atmosphere of political tension reminds him of the one that existed a quarter of a century ago in Israel when an extremist A Jew shot and killed Labor leader Isaac Rabin, who had signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians. “You have to act before; We should not wait for bloodshed to occur ”, he warned.

Some of the main rabbis linked to groups of the Israeli extreme right launched on Saturday night a joint manifesto aimed at their followers to "prevent by all means" the formation of an alternative government, in which for the first time since 2013 they did not the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties will be represented.

One of the signatories, the nationalist Rabbi Chaim Druckman, clarified after the Shin Bet's warning that actions to thwart the birth of the new coalition must be placed "within democratic parameters."

A "dangerous leftist government"

According to the Hebrew press, the Israeli security services are also considering how to counteract a scenario of generalized violence in the event that radical groups try to revive events such as those that occurred on 6 May at the headquarters of the Knesset in Jerusalem. January in Washington. Then, a completed assault on the Capitol by supporters of Republican Donald Trump attempted to forcibly prevent the United States Congress from ratifying the election as president of Democrat Joe Biden.

Netanyahu has so far not resorted to the incendiary proclamations of his close American ally - "we will walk to the Capitol!" Trump harangued in a speech delivered to the White House on January 6 - but continues to send his supporters messages that cast shadows on the legitimacy of the new broad-coalition government. "We are witnessing the electoral disappointment in the history of the State of Israel," he told the Likud deputies in the Knesset. “Many people rightly believe that they have been deceived,” argued the still prime minister to condemn the transfer of votes from the right-wing bloc to a coalition with the center-left, “and no one can impose silence on it” to protest against a “dangerous leftist government, backed by those who support terrorism (alluding to the Arab deputies) ”.