Zohar Zuaretz
The Petah Tikva Magistrate's Court on Monday indicted an Israeli man who published virulent anti-Arab posts on Facebook on charges including incitement to violence, incitement to racism and support for a terror organization.
Between 2012 and 2017, Zohar Zuaretz, 33, a Jewish resident of Petah Tikva in central Israel, published numerous posts calling for acts of violence to be carried out against Arabs as well as Israeli security forces, according to the charge sheet. He continued to do so despite being arrested and questioned several times for his posts.
Examples of posts by the far-right radical included calls to "exterminate" millions of Arabs in response for attacks against Israelis.
In one post, Zuarets wrote about a "rosy" dream he had in which he decapitated Arab babies.
"Wow, what a dream I had! I go into a hospital's maternity ward and there are all the cradles with babies inside. I draw out a butcher knife from my coat and go to every baby and if it's Arab, I decapitate it. Wherever there is a Jewish baby I place Tikkun HaKlali [a religious Jewish book also known as The General Remedy]. The rosiest dream I've ever had!"Zuaretz, who had over a thousand followers reading his posts, published posts such as "May all Arabs and left-wingers be burned!" and "How did we not think of establishing a 'price tag' political party," a reference to anti-Arab hate crimes.
"Dear Jews! It is time for a holy war - go out and slaughter all the Arabs with anything you can find! Revenge!" Zuaretz wrote in one of his posts, apparently in the aftermath of a terror attack against Israelis.
"For every murdered Jew, we need to avenge an entire people responsible for harming him! For a single Jew to live we are required to exterminate entire peoples, even millions of people!" he wrote.
Zuaretz was also charged with carrying out a "price tag" attack in which he vandalized a police car, spray-painting the vehicle and slashing its tires.
He spray-painted "death to Arabs" and other slogans on two buses belonging to the Afikim company, which serves both Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank.
The indictment also cited a post Zuaretz made against the IDF following the conviction of Elor Azaria, a soldier who shot dead an already subdued Palestinian assailant in Hebron in March 2016.
"A true Jew does not enlist in the evil, infidel's army. Go and do things alone. It's time to start a rebellion. I'm expecting all the soldiers to defect and direct their weapons in the right direction," he wrote.
Prosecutors concluded that Zuaretz posed a "clear risk of continuing criminal offenses on the internet, which would endanger the security of the Arab community and security forces."
Comment: Why make an example of Zuaretz when the IDF and Israel's government have effectively institutionalized such policies which amount to the very same sentiments - and are actually being carried out by them?