“President Reuven [Rivlin], you are an honest man, perhaps the last senior official to speak truthfully and aim for justice. I am proud of you my big brother for your courage and steadfastness … Do me a favor and tell your associates to keep you out of harm’s way. I failed.” This statement was posted on Aug. 3 by Shimon Sheves, the man who stood by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin throughout most of his tumultuous political career until his assassination in November 1995. What prompted Sheves to express concern on his Facebook page were the life threats made against Rivlin by extreme right-wing activists, who “dressed” him up, as they did Rabin back in those days, in Waffen SS uniforms, adding the caption “Traitor.”

Sheves told Al-Monitor that the level of hatred, violence, incitement and lawlessness in Israel today eclipses the atmosphere during the dark days that led to Rabin’s assassination.

The conversation with Sheves is not an easy one. The man is angry; he is hurting, he is in despair and he is pessimistic. What Sheves is seeing are the same sights that ended in the assassination of a prime minister. On the other hand, he sees that the security, political and legal authorities are doing nothing, as he said, to stop the incitement — a deja vu of the events of 1995.

“There are people in Israel who are just as benighted and as dangerous as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Islamic State,” he told Al-Monitor. “There isn’t a big difference between the madmen who decapitate people in Iraq and Kurdistan and “ours” who burn babies alive [referring to the murder of the Palestinian toddler on July 31]. That’s why President Rivlin is in danger.”