Lynn B has been closely following (see also: this post) the debate about when and where the Israeli Right crossed the limits of legitimate dissent into open incitement. Not that she’d agree with the way I’m framing that debate: her belief, and she’s at least partly in good company, is that the specter of incitement is being mobilized to shut down legitimate dissent. And the Sharon government is clearly engaging in some heavy-handed stifling of dissent:
The police force will deploy 4,000 officers around the Gaza Strip ahead of the planned evacuation to prevent anti-pullout activists from entering the settlements and disrupting the withdrawal.
But it’s also important to remember not only that a sitting Prime Minister has been murdered for trying to make peace, but also that there are still very public, very powerful figures willing to risk a similar tragedy
Mazuz is demanding that the Supreme Court overrule Justice Yaakov Tirkel’s 1997 ruling that Feiglin’s convictions, including both verbal and published calls for rebellion, are not crimes of moral turpitude.
According to Mazuz, “a High Court ruling is necessary in light of today’s volatile reality, inflammatory (remarks) in the public arena, which are expected to become even fiercer, and the negative impact that could come of leaving this decision unchanged, from the standpoint of the problematic public message that it conveys.”
