‘Yariv Levin – Enemy of the People’: Protesters vandalize Israeli justice minister’s home during ‘shiva’ week

Levin said he was moving quickly on judicial reform because he feared prosecution.

By World Israel News Staff

The inscription “Yariv Levin – Enemy of the People” was sprayed -painted overnight Thursday-Friday on the home of the justice minister, who is observing the ‘shiva’ mourning week for his father,  who passed away earlier this week at the age of 85, Hebrew-language Channel 12 reported.

Vandals spray-painted the Israeli justice minister’s home, writing “Yariv Levin – Enemy of the People” – on March 16, 2023. (N12/Twitter)

The home, located in the central Israeli city of Modi’in, had become one of the centers of protest against the government’s planned judicial reforms, led by the Likud minister. However, following the death of Prof. Aryeh Levin, an Israel Prize winner, demonstrations outside the minister’s home had stopped.

Police said they have opened an investigation regarding the vandalizing of real estate by spraying graffiti on a wall of the home.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement of condemnation of “the spraying of the hateful address against Minister Yariv Levin while he was sitting shiva, the violent attack against Minister Nir Barkat while he was at a political event, and the calls for murder against the chairman of the Constitution Committee Simcha Rothman.

“I expect the police and the prosecutor’s office to act immediately and with all the force against these manifestations of incitement and violence,” he said.

Barkat was addressing a conference in Kfar Saba, near Tel Aviv, on Thursday afternoon when protesters smashed a winder of the building. Minister Orit Strook (Religious Zionism) tweeted a photo, writing that “those who do not condemn the violence and do not call for it to stop immediately will not be able to say later that our hands did not spill blood and our eyes did not see.”

האבן שניפצה את החלון בכנס של ניר ברקת בכפר סבא – חייבת להיות תמרור עצור ענק לכל אזרח אחראי.
מאחורי היד שידתה את האבן עומדת חבורה של מסיתים שמתירים יום יום את דמנו.
מי שלא יגנה את האלימות הזו, ולא יקרא להפסקתה המיידית – לא יוכל לומר ידינו לא שפכו ועינינו לא ראו.@NirBarkat pic.twitter.com/CvJuOFSqus

— אורית סטרוק (@oritstrock) March 16, 2023

For the third week in a row, Thursday was designation as a “Day of Disruption,” and this week, several incidents of violence occurred during the protests.

Also according to Channel 12, Levin said in a closed conversation that he was working quickly on the reforms – despite a request from Netanyahu to try and find a compromise – because “if I stop, the State Attorney’s Office will take advantage of it to stitch together a case against me or one of my friends in order to discourage us and to thwart the reform.”

anti-government protestJudicial reformNir BarkatVandalismYariv Levin