Goldknopf asks police to investigate former Arad mayor over ‘urban intifada’ remark

United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf on Monday asked Police Commissioner Danny Levy to open a criminal investigation into former Arad mayor Nisan Ben Hamo, after Ben Hamo urged an “urban intifada” in response to protests by Gur Hasidim in the city.

The unrest began after hundreds of Gur followers took to the streets on Sunday night following the release of a yeshiva student who had been arrested last week. During the demonstration, they marched back and forth across a central pedestrian crossing, causing heavy traffic disruptions, slowdowns and congestion on nearby roads, while police monitored the situation.

Ben Hamo later posted a video saying, “There is no other way to describe what happened in the city except loss of control. When I said we need to go out for an urban intifada, some were outraged, this is what it means.” He added, “If we do not stand up on our hind legs, we will get this tens of times worse.”

Goldknopf argued in his letter that Ben Hamo was calling on city residents to launch an “urban intifada” against Arad’s Haredi residents, and said the term carries a national memory of blood, terror and severe violence. He said this was not legitimate criticism but “a direct call for violent acts, public disorder and endangering human life.”

Ben Hamo responded that Goldknopf was showing “moral hypocrisy,” accusing him of mobilizing his community against enlistment and to free a draft evader jailed in Prison 10, and of later backing an unlawful protest in Arad in which secular residents were beaten and property and vehicles were damaged. He said Goldknopf, whom he described as leading “the community of draft dodgers during wartime,” had no standing to preach about incitement or the rule of law.