The threats came at a time of deep political divisions in Israel. In a keynote address Wednesday night on Israel Holocaust Remembrance Day, Bennett spoke out against polarization in Israel, urging citizens not to let internal divisions disintegrate society. Israeli police said both incidents were being investigated, but gave few other details, including where the items were sent and who might have sent them. Bennett has come under fire from Israel’s hard-line right wing since forming his governing coalition last year. In 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish supranationalist who opposed his peace efforts with the Palestinians. The Bennett government is made up of eight parties from across the political spectrum, including religious nationalists, centrists and an Islamic party. It is the first Arab party to join a governing coalition. These parties have little in common beyond their common animosity with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They agreed to put aside many of their differences, focusing on common ground, such as the economy, managing the coronavirus crisis, and spending on education and social services. Netanyahu, now the leader of the opposition, has worked hard to undermine the coalition. Critics have accused Bennett, who leads a small, religious nationalist party, of abandoning his core hardline beliefs. A member of Yamina’s party has been accused of being an “apostate” this week for repeatedly backing the opposition with hundreds of votes. Another member of his party recently resigned from the coalition, leaving the fragile alliance without a parliamentary majority. Bennett formed the coalition last June after four vague elections that highlighted rifts in society over key issues as well as the polarizing implications of Netanyahu’s 12-year rule. In a speech on Wednesday, one of the most official days of the year, Bennett begged the nation to put aside its differences. “My brothers and sisters, we can not, we simply can not allow the same dangerous factionalism gene to disintegrate Israel from within,” Bennett said. That talk came a day after his family received a bullet in the mail for the first time. The episode prompted Yoni’s 17-year-old son to express his grief in an Instagram post. “It’s sad to see real people writing such horrible things,” he said. “To think that he lives and breathes like me but has a brain created by the devil is crazy.” Bennett is a former top aide to Netanyahu, and Yoni takes his name from Netanyahu’s older brother, who was killed in a notorious Israeli commando raid in 1976 while rescuing a hijacking in Uganda. An Israeli official familiar with the matter confirmed on Thursday that the second threatening letter and the bullet had been sent to Yoni Bennett. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations. Police ordered a silence on the investigation, and officials declined to say if there were any suspects. While there are many indications of Jewish extremists, the threats also come at a time of growing tension with the Palestinians following a series of deadly Palestinian attacks on Israeli cities, Israeli military raids in the occupied West Bank and clashes between Palestinians and Palestinians. the most sensitive sanctuary and cross-border fighting with Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip.
