Far-right mobs have been targeting a pioneering Arab Israeli journalist for encouraging Arab Israelis to vote

Israeli-Arab news anchor and prime time manager on i24news channel Lucy Aharish, poses for a portrait at the i24news studios, on April 15, 2015 in Jaffa, Israel. Photo by David Vaaknin for The Washington Post via Getty Images

(JTA) — Lucy Aharish was supposed to be in the United States this week, delivering a lecture at Stanford University in honor of Daniel Pearl, the Jewish journalist murdered by jihadist militants in Pakistan in 2002.

Instead, the Arab Israeli journalist was hunkered down in her native Israel, trying to keep her family safe from far-right Jewish mobs that have been rallying nightly outside the Tel Aviv apartment she shares with her young child and husband, the Jewish “Fauda” star Tzahi Halevi. (When Aharish, whose parents are Muslim, married Halevi in 2018, some lawmakers from religious parties criticized the union.)

Some protesters have shouted phrases associated with violence against Arabs, including “May your village burn,” according to Israeli media reports. They have also called Aharish a “whore” and called out her 5-year-old son by name.

The threats to Aharish, who made history in 2007 when she became Israel’s first Arab news presenter, came after she criticized right-wing Israeli lawmakers’ responses to a wave of deadly violence against Arab communities and called for Arab Israeli citizens to vote in the upcoming election.

“Arabs are citizens of this country, and despite your righteousness, in the coming election, they will come out in droves to the polls, inshallah,” she said during one of her monologues on Channel 13 earlier this month.

Aharish lay the blame for the subsequent unrest on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who would falter at the polls if Arabs voted in large numbers. Activists from Netanyahu’s party, Likud, have been associated with repeated harassment of political enemies at their homes.

“You, sir, are guilty. And until you call off your goons — and there are many of them — you are the leader of this mob,” Aharish said on TV, according to the Times of Israel. “One day these goons will come to your doorstep. Who knows when they’ll turn on you?”

Netanyahu has not responded to the charge. Several of the activists have been detained by police, including a prominent far-right agitator, Mordecai David, who was charged with trespassing after entering Aharish’s apartment building with a megaphone.

Halevi, who has volunteered extensively for military reserves duty since Oct. 7, was seen arguing with a protester who was later detained, saying “You’ve come to my home? Where do you want this to go?” according to the Times of Israel.

The protests have ignited support for Aharish from a range of voices.

“I am incredibly humbled and proud that @ADL is honoring pioneering journalist @lucyaharish with the Abraham Award at this year’s #NeverIsNow,” tweeted Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, following a statement by the ADL’s Israel branch. “The campaign targeting her home and her family is despicable. I am proud to stand with her, especially during this difficult time.”

The pro-Israel group StandWithUs similarly rejected the harassment. “We strongly condemn the fringe extremists who are targeting Israeli news anchor Lucy Aharish,” it tweeted. “Debating ideas, even intensely, is legitimate in a democratic society. Harassing a journalist at her home and attacking her identity as an Arab citizen of Israel is not.”

In Israel, Aharish’s supporters staged a demonstration on her behalf outside the Channel 13 studios. One participant, the hostage mother Einav Zangauker, who has emerged as a prominent Netanyahu adversary, wore a shirt with the word “inshallah” transliterated into Hebrew.

Even with the threat of war with Iran simmering, the journalist Nadav Eyal has called the protests against Aharish “the most important political story in Israel” right now, saying that they demonstrate the empowerment of fringe figures like David by the political establishment and increasing efforts to quash dissenting voices, including in the media.

“What is happening to Aharish offers a glimpse into the ugliness that may define the months ahead, as the country moves toward elections that will be held, at the latest, in October,” Eyal wrote in an essay published on Thursday.

The night before, the Daniel Pearl lecture had taken place at Stanford, with his father Judea taking Aharish’s place. “I am sorry to announce that, due to extraordinary and very troubling circumstances, Lucy Aharish will not be able to travel to the U.S. to deliver the Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at Stanford as originally planned,” Judea Pearl tweeted. Responding to a question about why, he answered, “It is related to her harassment.”