“Can words kill?” With prophetic timing, Channel 12 political reporter Amit Segal posed this question in his Friday column in Yediot Aharonot.
The column was published the day before the assassination attempt on former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. It addressed the intense incitement against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks and the tolerant attitude of the country’s elites when incitement comes not from the right but against the right.
Segal stressed that in the eyes of Israel’s attorney general, prosecutors, opposition parties and most of the media, “it’s not a question of who is instigating, but who is being incited.” In their eyes, he argued, “Netanyahu’s opponents are far more independent and intelligent than his supporters, and there is no danger that they will translate these words into physical harm.”
So it causes no uproar when attendees of anti-Netanyahu rallies routinely call the prime minister a “traitor” – a term that was apparently removed from the official language after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the belief that Yigal Amir had him killed as a result of incitement that included calling Rabin a traitor.
Nor does it get very excited when a reserve general calls Prime Minister Netanyahu a tyrant, or when the daughter-in-law of one of the slain hostages says that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his “accursed family” will be “hanged” if the hostages are not released.
But as a shocking incident that happened near Pittsburgh on Saturday shows, there’s plenty to be excited about.
What happened in Pennsylvania should be a lesson for Israel, and certainly for democracies around the world where people are polarized and social media amplifies extremist speech.
A polarized political environment, where strong words and extremely irresponsible statements are the norm, is an environment that breeds political violence.
While the 20-year-old suspect who shot President Trump, Thomas Matthew Crooks, is responsible for his actions, the current atmosphere in the United States is deeply disturbing, as political opponents seem not just opponents but enemies of democracy, freedom and “the people.”
Because if an elected leader or aspiring leader is an enemy of the people, what is his fate? How should we deal with an enemy of the people?
This kind of language is now commonplace in Israel. At one recent anti-Netanyahu protest, reserve major general Guy Toole said: “Netanyahu is a traitor. He has become the enemy of the people. He needs to be ousted as soon as possible.”
There are other ways to express opposition to the Prime Minister besides using this language.
Or, as Yolanda Yavor said at the protest, “If he [Netanyahu] If not a traitor, then who is a traitor? And what is betrayal? A traitor!”
And she added: “We want to calm those who are trying to incite against us. None of us can harm that traitor or his accursed family.”
Really? Why is she so sure?
Demonization and delegitimization create an atmosphere in which political violence can be nurtured and thrive – the assassination attempt on Trump is further evidence of just that.
Trump himself has used extremely polarizing rhetoric to delegitimize others and has been called a tyrant and dictator. If that were the case, wouldn’t the world be better off without Trump? Words themselves don’t kill, but they create an environment where they can be misconstrued as an excuse to justify political murder.
The footage of Trump being shot was brutal and shocking. There is no way that it could have been justified, although some people, hating Trump so much, will try to justify it – that this did not happen in a vacuum, but that Trump’s own polarizing, divisive and bullying rhetoric and style brought it about.
Condemnation of attempted attack
World leaders from all political stripes were quick to condemn the assassination attempt on Trump, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who “unequivocally condemned” the act of political violence.
Why does Guterres’ statement stand out? This is the same UN Secretary-General who condemned the Hamas massacre after it happened on October 7, but said, “It is also important to recognize that Hamas attacks do not occur in a vacuum.” Guterres “contextualized” Hamas’ actions. Thankfully, he did not take the same approach to the assassination attempt on Trump.
An attempted assassination of a former and potential future President of the United States is an evil act. That’s all. Similarly, the murder of 1,200 people and the taking of over 250 hostages is an evil act. That’s all. Contextualizing evil by trying to understand its roots or by arguing that evil does not occur in a vacuum is a dangerous feature of today’s discourse and has the potential to create more evil.
The events that took place in the US on Saturday should raise warning signals here too.
Segal quoted Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid as suggesting that the incitement against Attorney General Galile Bahrav Miara is worse than that against Prime Minister Netanyahu because, although incitement against him exists, he is not the most protected person in the country. This means that the better protected the target is, the more acceptable the incitement is, which is an absurd and dangerous idea.
Saturday’s incident exposed the absurdity of this equation: Trump was shot in broad daylight, despite heavy Secret Service security. In the Israeli context, the incident highlights an important point: incitement can be deadly, regardless of the level of security around the target.
Saturday’s assassination attempt will undoubtedly force countries around the world to reassess their security and prevention strategies and draw the necessary conclusions to prevent similar incidents from happening in their countries, and Israel must be one of them, given that the same toxicity of “your political opponent is your enemy” that exists in the United States also exists here.
