Religious Zionist journalist Chaggai Hoberman wrote shocking statements in a journalists’ social media group, inciting the murder of religious people and Chareidim.

Someone in the group posted last week about the planned protest by Peleg Yerushalmi, and Hoberman responded by writing: “For a long time now, I have supported implementing ‘Run over every religious Jew, exterminate the Chareidim.'”

The message triggered sharp responses from several group members, with one immediately replying: “What did you write here??”

Reports of the statements spread on social media, causing an uproar. In response to an inquiry by Channel 14, Hoberman—who is religious himself and is identified with Naftali Bennett—said he meant “run over every religious Jew who blocks roads in protests against military conscription.”

But then he escalated his remarks, and when asked whether such a statement was reasonable, he replied that in his opinion, road blockages due to opposition to the draft should be met with physical violence, including breaking bones, “preferably with clubs.”

Many social media users called on the police, the Shin Bet, and the State Attorney’s Office to open an investigation against him for alleged racist incitement to murder. Some commenters described his remarks as antisemitic and as a call for pogroms, expressing shock that someone serving as a newspaper editor would make such statements.

Later on Sunday, it was reported that Israel Police launched an investigation into Hoberman’s statements.

Hoberman has a history of harsh statements against Chareidim. In 2013, he caused an uproar when he said: “I admit that not a single tear will fall from my eyes if I see the yeshivot of Ponevezh, Mir, Slabodka, and Chevron all standing in the same condition as Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin in Poland,” which, as is well known, was destroyed in the Holocaust.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)