The B’Tzalmo organization submitted a formal request on Sunday to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara demanding the opening of a criminal investigation against a candidate in Yair Golan’s Democrats party on suspicion of incitement to racism and calling for her disqualification.

The request follows footage from a private political gathering posted on social media, showing the candidate presenting demographic data about the Chareidi population and saying, “They double their numbers every 25 years…this means that in 25 years they’ll make up 50 percent of the population—unless we stop it.”

She then claimed that Chareidi birth rates have dropped over the past few years due to financial sanctions. “I can tell you that over the past three years—since sanctions began, since we stopped funding schools without core curriculum studies, and since we stopped subsidizing daycares—birth rates have gone down,” she said. “Now this process must continue.”

The head of B’Tzalmo, Shai Glick, wrote in the appeal, “While political debate over budget allocation is legitimate in a democracy, explicitly calling to ‘halt the reproduction’ of an ethnoreligious group is a racist and dangerous statement. Defining children as a ‘demographic threat’ to be reduced by government measures is the dehumanization of an entire segment of society and contradicts basic human morality.”

Glick argued that the candidate’s remarks portray a specific population as a “problem” whose natural growth must be curbed—grounds for disqualification under Section 7A of Israel’s Basic Law: The Knesset.

He also noted that past candidates, such as MK Michael Ben-Ari and Baruch Marzel, were disqualified for less severe statements, urging the Attorney General to apply the same legal standard in this case.

Alongside the request for her disqualification, the organization also urged the Attorney General to consider launching a criminal investigation over possible incitement to racism or sedition, arguing that her statements were intended to inflame tensions and create division within Israeli society.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)