Rivlin 'unsurprised' by 'expected' incitement after Azaria decision
President Rivlin tells supporters ‘not to worry about me’ following fury over decision to reject Elor Azaria’s pardon request; 'certain people have an interest in fanning the flames', Rivlin says, lamenting wave of public anger given further momentum by gov't officials; report shows 60% of online discourse surrounding matter contains expletives about Rivlin, 25% calls to have him killed.
President Reuven Rivlin said Monday he wasn’t “surprised by anything,” following a barrage of criticism against him—some of which many described as incitement—after he rejected a pardon request filed by the former IDF soldier Elor Azaria, who was convicted of manslaughter earlier this year and imprisoned for shooting to death a neutralized terrorist in March 2016.
"I'm fine, don't worry about me. It was expected and I’m not surprised by anything," Rivlin said after his office was said to inundated with calls of support from across the country's political spectrum, with Likud members and both coalition and opposition MKs expressing their solidarity.
In conversations behind closed doors, however, President Rivlin said certain parties seeking to advance their interests incited and fanned the flames surrounding his rejection.
Sources close to the president said he was under an unprecedented wave of incitement, tongue-lashing and agitation that goes well beyond topical criticism and clearly has a political bent. The wave, the sources argued, gathered its impetus at the grassroots level, but was given further momentum halfway by initiatives from Israel's top echelons.
The "Vigo" research firm examined the hate speech leveled at Rivlin over the past 24 hours for the Berl Katznelson Foundation's hate report and found that of 15,000 conversations about the pardon, 60 percent contained invective or incitement against the president, with the main culprits responsible for posting inflammatory comments being Minister Miri Regev, MK Oren Hazan and rapper-turned-activist HaTzel ("The Shadow"), while 25 percent contained calls to actual violence and statements calling to kill Rivlin.Some wished death upon him or cursed him, calling Rivlin a "son of a b****," "piece of trash," and "sick."
"You're garbage waste. Take your tongue out of the asses of the heads of the Israel Destruction Fund and go to hell, damned Nazi," wrote one user named Michael.
"You disgust me, you're not my president. When I see your photo, I feel like throwing up," wrote Dror.
Police announced Monday it had launched an investigation after a photo of a kaffiyah-clad Rivlin was disseminated on social networks.
Sources who spoke to the president said he was aware that right-wing politicians would attempt to exploit the affair to promote their own interests.
The president knew he would pay a heavy toll for his decision, they added, but believed his decision carried a moral statement backing up the army in general and its tribunals in particular.
Rivlin did not regret his decision, the same sources said. He again considered it a moral statement that would influence both the IDF and Israel's values for years to come, as opposed to merely considering tomorrow morning's poll numbers.
Rivlin was also said to be unsurprised by the scathing attack by Likud MKs Regev and David Bitan. Sources close to the president said their invective was part of an ongoing delegitimization campaign and an attempt to make presidential pardons a political issue, similar to a campaign carried out against other state entities and gate keepers.
As for the photo of Rivlin wearing the traditional Arab headdress, which were reminiscent of past photos of slain former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the president said he was unperturbed by it.
As someone born in 1939, before Israel was founded, and who speaks Arabic, Rivlin said he saw no slight in depicting him wearing a kaffiyah, let alone considered it something to get worked up about. Nevertheless, it was the police's decision to investigate the matter.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the affair in Monday's Likud party meeting, saying that while some of the pictures and statements had crossed the line, not all criticism was incitement.
"In a democracy, it is permissible to criticize anyone. Nobody knows that better than me, and not all criticism is incitement. The only request is that the criticism is topical and to the point and respectful without a kaffiyah, without sculptures, without nooses and without Nazi uniforms. That is unacceptable against the president or any other public figure. Regarding criticism that is to the point—it is not only permissible, it is a must," the prime minister said.
Netanyahu further clarified where he stood on the Azaria issue that had whipped up hysteria across the country, stressing that from the outset, he had supported his pardon request. "I called for the full pardoning of Elor Azaria since day one. My opinion has not changed," he insisted.
