One of the three suspects arrested by Israeli police for allegedly firing flares at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence helped lead a left-wing protest movement against the government’s judicial reforms last year.
As the Jerusalem Post reported, two flares were fired at the Caesaria home on Saturday night, causing fires nearby.
Netanyahu was not home. (The home was also hit by a Hezbollah drone several weeks ago in an unrelated attack.
The Times of Israel reported Wednesday local time:
One of them is Rear Adm. (res.) Ofer Doron, a former senior Navy officer who announced last year that he would no longer show up for volunteer reservist duty in protest of the government’s controversial judicial overhaul plan, and was suspended from the reserves in response.
The other two suspects are named as Amir Sadeh and Itai Yafeh, both longtime anti-government protesters.
The suspects reportedly told police they did not intend to target the home directly.
Throughout 2023, left-wing protesters thronged the streets of Israel to protest reforms that Netanyahu’s coalition said were necessary to balance the power of left-wing, activist courts. Some protesters vowed not to show up for military reserve duty, or even to be drafted into the military at all, as most Israeli 18-year-olds are.
The protests lasted until October 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded the country. Critics of the protest movement say that it endangered national security by encouraging disunity and refusal to serve in the military.
Some anti-Netanyahu protest has retuned in the movement to release the Israeli hostages, though the major obstacle is Hamas, not the Israeli government.
Netanyahu warned earlier this year, in the wake of the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump in the U.S., that he was also being targeted by violent threats.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.