JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s son received a death threat and a bullet in the mail, police said on Thursday. This is the second threat against the leader’s family in a week.
On Tuesday, Bennett’s family also received a letter containing a death threat and a live bullet.
Israeli authorities are offering no details about who could be behind the threats but they are investigating the incidents. They have also boosted security around the prime minister’s family.
Bennett has suggested that the threats are politically motivated.
“Political conflict, no matter how deep, doesn’t need to come to violence, thuggery and death threats,” he said.
“I am prime minister and a politician, but I am also a husband and father, and my obligation is to protect my wife and children,” Bennett continued. “We must lower the flames of the political discourse.”
Last year, Bennett formed a government coalition containing parties from the political left, right, center, and even a small Islamist party, who are all united in their opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu.
Critics have accused Bennett, who leads a small religious, nationalist party, of forsaking his right-wing values. A key member of his coalition recently resigned and another member of his Yamina Party was sanctioned this week as “defector” for repeatedly voting with the opposition.
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During a speech Wednesday night marking Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, Bennett urged Israelis to fight polarization.
“Today, thank God, in the State of Israel, we have one army, one government, one Knesset and one nation – the people of Israel. When we are united, no external enemy can beat us,” said Bennett.
Death threats have already resulted in the assassination of an Israeli prime minister. In 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by an Israeli extremist during a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
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