Since the February 2023 pogrom in the West Bank village of Huwara – and even more so following the outbreak of war on October 7 of that year — I, together with Israeli human rights organisations including the Tag Meir Forum, Combatants for Peace, Machsom Watch, and others, have submitted formal requests to the State Prosecutor’s Office and the police to open criminal investigations against dozens of public figures, rabbis, and far-right activists suspected of incitement to violence and terrorism. Separately, additional demands were submitted by other organisations, such as Adalah and the Democratic Guard, the latter of which also filed a petition with the High Court of Justice.

Given the public nature of the incitement, civil society demands may have seemed unnecessary — the State Prosecutor’s Office and the police could have acted on their own initiative had they chosen to do so. Videos and messages on social media openly called for burning, destroying and erasing villages and mosques, portraying the entire Palestinian population as the enemy and issuing both implicit and explicit calls to kill civilians. Some even urged killing women and children. While some framed these calls as a security imperative, others invoked religious duty, and many combined both.

According to Israeli procedures, due to the protection of freedom of expression, approval from a senior official in the Prosecutor’s Office is required to open a criminal investigation and prosecute incitement offences. Additional approvals are needed when the case involves elected officials.

In practice, however, since the Huwara pogrom, the Prosecutor’s Office acted passively in response to the complaints we submitted, allowing the police to drag out the review of tweets on X or videos lasting just a few minutes—sometimes for one to two years. Once the police completed their “review,” the findings were forwarded to the Prosecutor’s Office, which only in exceptional cases approved opening a criminal investigation and summoned the suspect for questioning. Decisions on appeals we filed against case closures are expected to take several more years.

While we remain entangled in the bureaucratic processes of filing complaints and appeals, the overall picture is alarming but not surprising.

According to a report prepared by the Knesset Research and Information Center based on data from the State Prosecutor’s Office, in 2023, 301 cases of incitement to terrorism were opened, and 160 indictments were filed against 168 defendants. In 2024, 238 cases were opened, and 62 indictments were filed against 68 defendants. These figures refer to areas within the Green Line – that is, Israel proper – together with East Jerusalem, which was illegally annexed and is fully subject to Israeli law.

Regarding 2024, the Prosecutor’s Office acknowledged that, according to its data, indictments were filed primarily against Arabs. For 2023, it said it did not have a breakdown of indictments by nationality. However, Adalah’s data show that in just the first month of the war (early October to mid-November 2023), 70 indictments were filed against Arabs on charges of incitement to terrorism. Over the past two years, Israeli media have reported only a handful of indictments against Jews; one such case involved a resident of Zikhron Ya‘akov who posted, “It’s time to slaughter Gaza children in their cradles.”

The Prosecutor’s Office has yet to release data for 2025, but according to ongoing reports in the Israeli media, no changes are expected.

Similar figures apply beyond the Green Line as well – that is, the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem, which was annexed. According to a response I received from the IDF following a Freedom of Information request, in 2023, 93 indictments were filed against Palestinians for incitement to terrorism under military law; in 2024, 134 indictments were filed; and by May 2025, 29 indictments had been filed. Meanwhile, according to a response I received from the police regarding enforcement against Jews for incitement to terrorism and violence in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria Police District, excluding East Jerusalem), only one indictment was filed in 2023, and none were filed in 2024 or up to September 2025.

While the Prosecutor’s Office decided to close dozens of cases filed against Jewish public figures, rabbis, and far-right activists – some of whom enjoy enormous public influence and large followings in Israel – many of the Arabs and Palestinians indicted on similar charges on both sides of the Green Line, to the best of our knowledge, are ordinary people with no public standing or ability to influence. Among them was a Palestinian from a small West Bank village who was arrested immediately after posting on social media a message wishing death on an Israeli public official who had repeatedly called for the extermination of the Palestinian people.

In November 2015, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg rejected a claim of discrimination between Palestinians and Jews regarding the demolition of houses belonging to perpetrators of terror attacks – a claim raised in connection with those who kidnapped, tortured, and murdered teenager Muhammad Abu Khdeir. He wrote:

“In the Jewish sector, there is no need for the same environmental deterrence that is the purpose of house demolitions. The Jewish public, by and large, is deterred and restrained, and is not incited. It is true that there are acts of assault by Jews against Arabs. Law enforcement authorities are certainly obligated, and the courts are required, to exhaust the criminal process to the fullest in these cases as well. After all, we have reached the point of the terrible murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, not to mention the shocking murder of the Dawabsheh family, the full details of which are not known. However, the differences outweigh the similarities in several respects, and especially for our purposes – regarding the environment: there is firm and unequivocal condemnation across the Jewish sector, which is not the case on the other side.”

It appears that regarding the enforcement of incitement offences, the Prosecutor’s Office concurs with Justice Sohlberg’s view that deterrence is unnecessary in the Jewish sector. This position, which from the outset seemed disconnected from reality, has certainly become untenable since early 2023 – when, amid calls of encouragement from government members, Knesset representatives, rabbis, and other public figures, a widespread wave of pogroms, terror, destruction, and violent expulsions of entire Palestinian communities erupted in the West Bank, alongside massive destruction and killing in the Gaza Strip.

In this context, in August 2024, former head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Ronen Bar, sent a letter to the prime minister, government ministers, and the Attorney General warning that Jewish terror threatens the very existence of the state. He stated that “the leaders of this phenomenon seek to bring the system to a loss of control; the damage to the State of Israel is incalculable.” He added that police inaction and “possibly even a tacit sense of backing” for these acts have led to “a significant increase in the number of participants in the phenomenon.” While Bar was cautious in his wording, it is clear that by “a sense of backing,” he was referring to the incitement and encouragement expressed by government and coalition members.

Perhaps the reason the Prosecutor’s Office behaves this way is the understanding that if it were to seriously enforce incitement laws within the Jewish sector, it would have to file indictments against a vast number of people – not only senior figures but also countless ordinary Israeli Jewish citizens.

Be the reason as it may, the numerical data on incitement cases indicate that, whether the Prosecutor’s Office intended it or not, at least in terms of results, enforcement on both sides of the Green Line is racially discriminatory.

Attorney Eitay Mack, together with Tag Meir Forum, supports Palestinian victims of terror and racism.

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