Police complaint filed on protest leader for calling coalition ‘Nazis'

Attorney Raz Atia filed a police complaint against anti-judicial reform activist leader Shikma Bressler on Sunday morning after the physicist called coalition members “Nazis” on Friday.

Atia said that he filed the complaint because Bressler’s statement at the first Nahalal Conference for Democracy constituted incitement to violence.

“I filed a police complaint against Shikma, because such a statement is dangerous to the people of Israel. This is incitement to murder,” said Atia.

The attorney noted that Bressler had filed a libel suit against model Nataly Dadon for claiming that the activist was undertaking dangerous actions, but herself was calling right-wing Knesset members Nazis. According to Israel Hayom, Bressler in August demanded a quarter-million shekels for damages after Dadon wrote on social media that the activist called for the use of force and was blocking ambulances.

Why did Shikma Bressler call coalition MKs Nazis?

At the conference on Friday, Bressler denounced attempts to negotiate with the coalition on the judicial reform, “it’s forbidden to speak to Nazis, regardless of if they are Jewish or not.”

The physicist apologized for her use of the word, saying that mistakes can be made in the fight for the country. “I used a word that has no place in the discourse. I regret and apologize for this statement.”

Atia echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his denouncement of Bressler, who also said that “The right to demonstrate is not the right to incite.”

Netanyahu wrote that he “strongly condemn[s] the words of the leftist demonstration leader, Shikma Bressler, who referred to the government ministers as “Nazis.” This scandalous statement is both an insult to the Holocaust, and wild incitement to the murder of government ministers and elected officials.”

Bressler shared a post by hi-tech entrepreneur Moshe Radman, in which he said that Bressler had already apologized, and that Netanyahu was engaging in demagoguery – the protest had no leaders and was a non-partisan movement, he said.