Posters Calling Netanyahu ‘Liar’ Go Up Around Jerusalem

JERUSALEM —  Posters depicting Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu in Arab headdress under the slogan “The Liar” appeared in Jerusalem on Thursday, recalling a hate campaign that preceded the 1995 killing of Yitzhak Rabin.

It was the first sign of right-wing street opposition to the prospect that Netanyahu, under U.S. pressure, would get Cabinet approval in principle--perhaps as early as Sunday--to hand over more West Bank land to Palestinian self-rule.

A Reuters television camera captured an angry Israeli tearing away at a row of posters of the prime minister, which were signed in the name of a far-right Israeli movement known in Hebrew as Hazit Haraayon, the “Ideological Front.”

“This could bring about violence,” one man said of the billboard filled with black-and-white photo posters showing Netanyahu with a red Arab kaffiyeh, or headdress, printed on his head and “The Liar!!!” written in black across the top.

Israeli police said they had detained two far-right activists caught in possession of the posters.

Netanyahu on Thursday offered to give Palestinians more West Bank land by April provided they met his demands for a systematic crackdown on Muslim militants and entered into accelerated talks on a final peace deal.

The five-month timetable, disclosed in a speech to Israeli newspaper editors, was likely to disappoint Palestinians who had already dismissed his reported plan to give them an additional 6% to 8% of the land as insufficient.

Netanyahu declined comment on the posters but his Likud Party ascribed them to a handful of extremists who, craving publicity, were engaged primarily in what it called “incitement and provocation.”

Far-right political activist Noam Federman said friends of his in the movement hung the posters in Jerusalem and elsewhere.

“Netanyahu only two, three weeks ago decided, ‘I will not do any more withdrawals’ . . . and today he lies. . . . So what’s the difference between him and Rabin?” Federman asked.

Yigal Amir, a Jew, shot Rabin to death two years ago to try to stop the prime minister from carrying out land-for-peace deals with the Palestinians.

Immediately after the assassination, Rabin’s widow, Leah, accused Netanyahu, then opposition leader, of creating a climate for the murder by leading protests at which Rabin was called a “traitor” and “murderer” and depicted in posters in a kaffiyeh.

“What is a traitor after all?” Federman asked Israel television. “A traitor is one who breaches faith. . . . Netanyahu is breaching the faith of his voters.”