Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has warned that the unrestrained violence of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, both bent on pursuing the Zionist dream of a greater Israel without the presence of any Palestinians, has put Israel on the path to civil war. “Smotrich and his friends, like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, are preaching in favor of what should be understood as an invitation to physical elimination of the judicial system, of the legal advisers, gatekeepers and all those who stand in the city streets and squares, and protest against the thugs running the country,” Olmert wrote in an op-ed in Haaretz, referring to comments recently made by Smotrich that can be read as an “invitation to murder” Supreme Court President Isaac Amit. Similar statements, Olmert says, have been made about Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
“Everything is connected to everything else,” Olmert writes at the end. “The harassment of Palestinian residents of the territories; the deliberate inaction of the police; the military’s blindness to the goings-on; the support of local authorities for the Jewish rioters; the unnecessary and uncontrolled arming of settlers; the burning of fields, olive groves, homes and personal property; and the wounding and ultimate killing of Palestinians—all are part of a regular, organized modus operandi. And above all: the incitement, the threats against the gatekeepers, the warnings to the legal advisers, the deputies attorney general and the attorney general herself, and the threat to ‘run over’ the president of the Supreme Court after saying that he is violent and ruthless, that he is someone who is stealing Israeli democracy and he must be dealt with.”
