Former MK Michael Ben Ari was indicted Sunday by the State Attorney on charges of incitement to racism for “dozens” of public statements during the years 2017 to 2023, in which he allegedly incited against Arab Israelis.
The Otzma Yehudit founder and former MK for the National Union party, a predecessor of the current Religious Zionism party, made his comments in public speeches, in media interviews, and on his social media accounts, which have tens of thousands of followers.
The indictment charges that Ben Ari, a student and follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane, repeatedly referred to Arab citizens of Israel as “enemies,” “a fifth column,” “occupiers,” and “a nation of murderers,” during those years.
Ben Ari also attributed to Arab Israelis in general “responsibility and complicity” for terror attacks committed by Arab criminals or assailants, the indictment alleged, and would also attribute negative stereotypes to Arab Israelis, accusing them of being “violent, cruel and murderous.” He also claimed that Arab Israelis as a whole wished to “eliminate,” “slaughter” and “destroy” all Jews, said that they did not belong in Israel, but in their “country of origin,” and called to “exclude them from the basic aspects of normal life.”
Yet far from being an inciter, Ben Ari should be hailed as a prophet, as he is one of the few people in Israel who detailed precisely and presciently years in advance what an attack by Gaza’s Arabs would look like.
In 2018, Ben Ari said that “Gaza is a narrow strip, whoever dreamed that we would leave it there and there would be peace and tranquility, he doesn’t know how to read the map. Either he’s a liar or a charlatan. Gaza is a roadside explosive which will blow up on us.
He described in detail what the attack would look like: ‘What do they want now? They want to go into the communities, to Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz, Beeri, Ein Hashlosha, Reim. The Arabs dream of coming and murdering them. They want to come from above [ground] from below….do you think the Hamas will cause us to live in peace? It will bring those murderers from Gaza, women, children, cripples to infiltrate the borders and slaughter them.
A week later Ben Ari foresaw the Oct. 7th massacre: “They want your house, miss, they want to destroy your house. They want to sit in your house, to rape you and all of our women. This is what they say and they don’t even hide it, they want our fields, our houses, they want to kill us.”
“The price of not conquering Gaza will be much more painful, and in the end we will have to conquer it at a much more painful price.”
