When Rabbis Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef were arrested last week on suspicion of incitement to violence toward non-Jews after their endorsements of the book "King's Torah," many claimed that the state prosecution is systematically discriminating against leftists while ostensibly protecting everyone's freedom of expression. As protector of that right, it was claimed, the prosecution refrains from taking leftists to court, even if they violate the laws of incitement outright. Recently, the prosecution was given two chances to prove the right-leaning public wrong, both involving vicious calls for a civil war against religious people and settlers. The first call to arms was made by Yonatan Shem-Or, a popular journalist, who wrote on the Hebrew-language news site MySay, "Soon the silent majority will cease to be silent, and will arise to spill blood." He even marked the target: "Them, their wigs that flutter in the holy wind. Them, and their eyes. Them, and their bloody yeshivot ... soon they will be silenced, soon they will drown in their own blood." Shem-Or concluded this prophecy of doom by calling upon Israel's secular populace to rise up, hinting that a revolution of sorts was inevitable. "There will be war, and blood will be shed, but the end is known: People will make a stand, not only on their legs, but also on their views and principles," he wrote. "The elite will go to war. The workers who toil, the inventors, the scientists, the industrialists, the teachers, they who already understand that the dye has been cast, us or them, the state or the ghetto, life or death, the time for battle has arrived." By writing publicly, unapologetically and unabashedly, Shem-Or showed he has no fear of police retribution for his words. He wanted the text he authored to be distributed far and wide and he knew he could do so with impunity. In another recent example with an even more prominent name, the cinematographer and Israel Prize recipient Yehuda Judd Neeman also called openly for a religious-secular war. Speaking with journalist Zeev Kam, Neeman said: "There should be a civil war between the Left and the Right, and we shall see who wins. That's what we need here. A war between the Left and the Right, between the settlers and the leftists, and the settlers will win of course, because they are the majority among the people and in the government. Afterward, a fascist regime will be established and everything will work out fine." To top it off, Neeman ended his speech with a fascist motto: "Long live death." We must ask how two people who claim to represent enlightenment and pluralism, as well as serving as watchdogs of citizens' rights, can so enthusiastically and unabashedly encourage a civil war in our country. These men, whose words are constantly punctuated by the terms of freedom and democracy, are fomenting conflict even as they clearly understand the devastating outcome of any such war. History has repeatedly proved, that civil war does not differentiate between friend and enemy, between the devil's hordes and the innocent public. Why do they ignore this fact? A civil war is a war that everyone loses in the end. The entire nation is defeated. Beyond the logic against such calls of hatred, the words shock. Two citizens of Israel, both learned and intelligent, preach physical pain upon anyone who thinks differently than they do. The state prosecution must now prove they are fair and unbiased when it comes to incitement to violence. Rabbis Lior and Yosef were taken into custody and interrogated for acts of lesser import than those of Shem-Or and Neeman. It should be noted that the rabbis did not write the book "King's Torah" themselves, but only expressed their generic support for its content. On the other hand, Shem-Or and Neeman spoke clearly and plainly. Their cases do not require elaborate interpretations or a creative imagination to understand that they are explicit calls for blood. Both writers were honest enough not to hide behind allegories or ambiguous messages. Both declared openly that the "writing is on the wall."
