Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Rivlin Files Police Complaint Following Assassination Threats

Security officials in the office of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin have filed a complaint with the Israel Police over threatening messages in the wake of Rivlin’s condemnation of an arson attack that killed a Palestinian baby.

Threats on social media include a call for Rivlin’s assassination, and a photo showing the president wearing a black-and-white-checkered kaffiyah.

Following the Thursday night attack Rivlin said in a statement: “it seems we have been lax in our treatment of the phenomena of Jewish terrorism. Perhaps we did not internalize that we are faced with a determined and dangerous, ideological group, which aims to destroy the fragile bridges which we work so tirelessly to build. I believe that the more we understand this significant danger to the State of Israel, the more we will be aware to confront it, and uproot it.”

At a rally on Saturday night in Jerusalem Rivlin said: “A blatant disregard for the rule of law, for human dignity, for a love of mankind, for a love of Israel, and freedom of opinion, has spread within us and is wreaking havoc. An atmosphere has been created here that has allowed leniency toward what is naively called ‘weeds’. Every society has extremist fringes, but today we have to ask: what is it in the public atmosphere which allows extremism and extremists to walk in confidence, in broad daylight? What is it that has enabled these ‘weeds’ to threaten the safety of the entire garden of flowers?”

Israel’s Shin Bet security service encouraged Rivlin’s security detail to file the police complaint, according to Haaretz.

Rivlin’s Facebook post against the attack, published in both Hebrew and Arabic, has received thousands of likes and responses.

The arson attack is believed to have been carried out by two settlers from an illegal outpost in the east Shilo area of the West Bank. The outpost is near the Palestinian village of Duma, where the attack took place.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.