Left-wing activist calls Israeli right ‘Jewish Nazis’

Shikma Bressler says left-wing parties must refuse to negotiate with Jewish “Nazis,” in reference to right-wing parties, regarding potential judicial reform compromise.

By World Israel News Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed one of the main leaders of Israel’s anti-government protest movement on Saturday, saying that her characterization of right-wing Israeli lawmakers and their supporters as “Nazis” was unacceptable.

Shikma Bressler, who began protesting against Netanyahu in 2020, long before the judicial reform legislation was on the coalition’s agenda, recently said that she was opposed to any sort of compromise with the right-wing parties on the overhaul.

Speaking at a left-wing conference last week, Bressler said that “it is forbidden to negotiate with Nazis, whether they’re Jews or non-Jews,” referring to the possibility of talks between the opposition and the Religious Zionist party.

After her remark sparked public backlash, Bressler issued a hasty apology in a media statement.

“I made a mistake in my comments. I used a word that has no place in the conversation,” she tweeted. “I’m sorry and I apologize for this.”

But Bressler’s original remark did not go unacknowledged by Netanyahu.

“This scandalous remark is Holocaust distortion and is also wild incitement to murder government ministers and elected representatives,” Netanyahu said in a statement released Saturday evening, several hours after Bressler’s apology.

“The right to protest does not mean the right to incite [violence].”

MK Tvzi Sukkot of the Religious Zionism party said that “while everyone makes mistakes, it’s clear [that this kind of rhetoric] is intentional on the part of the left…they’re [smearing] half the country so that their voice and votes don’t count.”

If the left-wing parties continue characterizing the right as “Nazis, then it’s allowed to do anything to stop them,” he said.

In July 2023, one of the founders of the dovish Peace Now group called for Sukkot to be “exterminated”, adding that the lawmaker is an “enemy of the state.”