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After two books on the supernatural in succession, I had the taste for something more grounded, more real.  Ironically, Exile was in my list for the Fall To Reading Challenge.  It’s a novel that can’t be anything but so painfully present— a fictitious story but one wholly based on current world events, dealing  in particular with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Author :  Richard North Patterson

Publication Date :  January 9, 2007  (Hardcover – 1st edition)

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

ISBN-10: 0805079475

ISBN-13: 978-0805079470

No. of pages :  576

The Story:

The hopes for a beginning toward peace between Israel and its Palestinian inhabitants are dashed when Jewish Prime Minister Amos Ben-Aron is assassinated by a Palestinian suicide bomber on American soil.

A brilliant Jewish lawyer and  promising politician,  David,  witnesses the horrifying murder of the man whom he admires and believes to be the catalyst for peace in the Middle East.  Suddenly he gets a call from a woman whom he had allowed himself to forget.  Hana Arif, the Palestinian law student he had been helplessly in love with  thirteen years ago,  suddenly calls and says she has been accused of being instrumental to the crime.   Would David help her?

Against the certainty of becoming a pariah in his Jewish community, of irredeemably breaking his engagement with his Jewish fiance,  and of wiping out the brilliant political career path he had been so ambitious of, David with his ideals and buried passion, takes up the cudgels of a seemingly impossible case to exonerate Hana.

The case impels him to take a closer look at his culture and at the long-standing enmity between Palestinians and Jews, by going through their histories and understanding both sides’ perspectives.  David follows a dangerous trail for information which takes him to Israel, the West Bank,  and Lebanon as he chases the elusive truth to save his client.

The Review :

I am writing this review just after I have turned the last page of this book.  I’ve been so riveted by it, turning page after page well into the night, as I came to understand much more about the volatile Palestinian-Israeli crisis.

Patterson has written a rare combination of a page-turner and an educational read which explains the present complex issues in the Middle East conflict.   Although couched in fiction, this book is a definite eye-opener  to those who do not understand or had been indifferent to the crisis that presently is, I believe, the greatest and most urgent threat to world peace.

Exile is the type of fiction novel that through its entertainment value, compels you to know more beyond it.  I am inspired to research more on the subject of the ongoing war between the Jews, Palestinians, and the Arab world at large.  It is scary in its magnitude of hatred and seemingly hopeless for its dearth of solution as each side believes so absolutely in the right of its cause.   Basically a war of land rights and sovereignty,  it draws its complexities from bringing  religion, racial history and culture, internal factions, and international politics into the fray, a tangle of elements that cannot be extricated singly to make solutions.

Patterson’s courtroom scenes are energetic,  intense, and a good read.  There is a lot going for this book as a suspense-crime-courtroom-thriller.  But the true merit of this book comes from the extensively researched issues backgounding this novel and the humane and impartial way the author represents the conflict for both sides that one cannot help but be emotionally moved at the plight of both Palestinians and Jews.

The novel never takes sides.  It simply presents the conflict from both perspectives and leaves it up to you to decide who is right.  Since it is impossible for one to make such an opinion with this book alone, Exile goads you to delve and learn more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an open  and unbiased  mind.  Current events will never seem so one-dimensional and so distant after this.

To Read Or Not To Read:

Indeed, an important read!  To those, like me, who have been partially oblivious to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, this book should constitute the top of your TBR pile.  This novel is a good starter to point our way toward informing ourselves of a current volatile dilemma facing the world today.   Muslim, Christian, Jew, atheist…whatever your leanings, we still cannot ignore that we are all inextricably connected and therefore will be involved, one way or another,  in this war.

It’s a thick novel but once you’re in it, you’d never feel its length.  In fact, you may end up wanting to know much more.

In A Nutshell:

Exile has successfully given an impartial yet emotional account of the Mid-East crisis.  It is not a finger-pointer ; no side is singled out to blame for starting this whole mess.  As it is, it is everyone and no one and but really the sordid side of human nature that has foisted this problem on us all.  As the author aptly writes:

“…The Promised Land, which many of each side believed was promised to them alone, might be consumed not merely by hatred and violence but also by the most banal of human faults—a failure to imagine the life of another.  The only common denominator of occupation was that it degraded everyone.” —- p. 401

“You know what amazes me, Zev?  it’s that so many Jews and Palestinians don’t give a damn about one another’s stories.  Too many Palestinians don’t grasp why three thousand years of death and persecution make Jews want their own homeland, or how suicide bombings alienate Jews and extend the occupation.   Too many Jews refuse to acknowledge their role in the misery of Palestinians since 1948, or that the daily toll of occupation helps fuel more hatred and violence.  So both become cliches:  Jews are victims and oppressors; Palestinians are victims and terrorists.  And the cycle of death rolls on… In three short weeks I’ve seen all kinds of suffering, from the families in Haifa to the misery of Hana’s parents.   But they live in different worlds…” — p.  407

Please pick up this book and be aware.  It’s a superb read, a must-read,  and will be well worth your time.

My Mark :  Excellent! +++

]]> http://roshpinaproject.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/redemption-2/ Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:38:05 +0000 yeze http://roshpinaproject.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/redemption-2/

Why did terrorist Yaakov Teitel act in the way he did?

Dina Kraft writes:

This Jack/Yaakov Teitel is being described as someone who acted alone in his attacks and planned attacks. But in an interview with Israel Radio yesterday, Ami Ayalon, the former head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service (basically Israel’s FBI), said that even such loners need a spiritual or ideological base in order to thrive.

Leah Ortiz, mother of Ami Ortiz, remarks:

The public is being reminded that the investigation is continuing to root out terrorist sleeper cells that are hiding and camouflaging themselves among the local residents. The newspapers report, and journalists have told us, about an Orthodox group who hold to the doctrine of what is called “Redemption” which claims that the reason the coming of the Messiah has been delayed is because of the tolerance of the State of Israel for Christians, left wingers and Homosexuals. All of these groups are classified as false prophets that have to be dealt with.

Indeed, Teitel’s actions were the product of a worldview of despair, in which rational debate is cast aside in favour of brashness and combat. Treating Messianic Jews as deceivers and tricksters, Teitel became the ultimate deceiver. Teitel deceived Ami Ortiz with a gift disguised as a Purim package. Teitel deceived Israel’s authorities, living for years in freedom as past victims lay dead. Teitel deceived his own family, and ultimately I suspect, Teitel deceived himself into thinking that he was in some way doing God’s will.

The case of Yaakov Teitel should serve as a warning as to how far people can take their prejudices. In this case, violent words have bred violent actions – a fact acknowledged by Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. And there are surely more Yaakov Teitels out there, plotting domestic terrorism. The mother of one of the victims of the shooting in the gay nightclub in Tel Aviv has warned that there is another Teitel out there.

Tonight, another man from Shvut Rachel who was an acquaintance of Teitel, Yosef Spinoza, has now been arrested.

Both men are being defended in the media by Adi Kedar of the Honenu organisation.

When Teitel was arrested in October, Honenu spokesman Shmuel Meidad protested:

“They have accused him [Y. T.] of every [unsolved] murder [in the State of Israel] from [Haim] Arlosorov [in June 1933] to the murder in the gay bar,” Shmuel Meidad, head of the Honeinu Legal Aid Organization, said. “They even reported that he confessed but [defense attorney] Adi Kedar or any one else has not met with him.”

Who or what is Honenu?

It is an Israeli legal group which campaigns for the release of Jewish murderers from Israeli jails when Arab murderers are released. They are headed up by Shmuel Meidad, known in right-wing circles as ‘Zangi.’ Meidad has previously spent time in prison, as has Ariel Groner, responsible for handling prisoner affairs in Honenu, who was arrested in 2006 and spent three months under house arrest. Groner was recently arrested after he was noticed handing out leaflets inciting violence against homosexuals, as was Teitel.

This past week Israelis have marked the anniversary of the murder of Yitzchak Rabin in 1994.   Guess which organisation tried to raise money for Rabin’s assassin in 2005? That’s right: Honenu.

Haaretz reported:

Honenu is headed by a resident of Kiryat Arba, Shmuel Meidad. It was established in 2002 and rose to prominence for its defense of people arrested in protests against the disengagement plan. The Amir fund was started recently, and is being kept under wraps. No mention of it is made on the Internet site. The organization has a telephone center for donations that can be made via standing bank orders, by check or by credit card.

To ensure that the money goes to the Amirs, the donor must write “for the fund promoting Yigal and Larissa Amir’s rights” on the reverse side of the check. For a credit-card donation, the donor must speak to the fund’s directors.

Concerning Honenu, Nadav Shrangai wrote in Haaretz in May 2008:

In their requests to current MKs, Hanenu notes that not a single Jewish terrorist who was released early returned to hurting Arabs, and that the organization disagrees with comparisons between Arab terror and Jewish terror.

As far as Hanenu is concerned, even if justification of Jewish terror is wrong, it derives from “mistaken judgment against a background of compromised security, or personal factors related to judgment and the sense that one needs to exact revenge.”

Zangi himself recalls that president Weizman showed him both sides of his hand when he explained to him, in Weizman’s coarse style, why he decided to reduce the sentences of Jewish terrorists. “See my hand, Zangi? Everything I think – you think the opposite. And everything you think – I think the opposite. We both come from different worlds, but one thing we agree on: If you release Arab murderers, release Jewish murderers as well.”

Let’s assess: The likes of the child-murdering Samir Kuntar deserve to be locked away for life, and never allowed into free society again. Hezbollah’s campaigns to free Kuntar shows their utter contempt for society (if it wasn’t blindingly obvious already), and reveal a total lack of human decency. Yet Honenu’s argument is just as disgusting.

Arab murderers are freed in exchange for the the bodies of Israeli soldiers to be returned, so why not free Jewish murderers when Arab murderers are freed?

Let’s put the question another way: what if Israel frees an Arab paedophile for political reasons? Should it then free a Jewish paedophile, just to make things ‘fair’?

Consider also the way that Honenu latched on to the politics surrounding Gilad Shalit, not campaigning for Shalit’s return, but for the release of Jewish nationalist prisoners. Honenu cynically tried to exploit an impossible situation, focusing on the release of guilty criminals rather than the innocent Shalit.

Among those listed by Honenu for release were Ami Popper, murderer of seven Arabs.

And guess who has previously championed Honenu’s cause?

Shas leader, and Israel’s Interior Minister and Deputy PM Eli Yishai, whom we last met enabling Yad L’Achim to run riot, subverting Israel’s democratic law and abusing his position in the process.

Quite frankly, it is little wonder, that Gideon Levy describes Yishai as Jean Marie Le Pen with a beard. Yishai does nothing to counter the assumption by religious and political zealots that Redemption will only come when Eretz Israel is cleansed of its postmodern Amaleks.

This story has also featured on eChurch Websites, Harry’s Place and Tikkun Olam.

Not according to Ami Ortiz‘ mother Leah Ortiz:

At this point initial reports have stated that he [Teitel] claims to have acted alone. We very well know that was not true because on our security camera tapes, it is seen that someone drove Teitel to our house. The video tape shows two people in the car which circled our house twice before leaving him off. Plus, there were people surveying our hallway that we don’t recognize, coming all the way up to our door, before the bombing took place. At this point, the Shin Bet , our secret services, are insisting that he could not have acted alone. Teitel does not have a good command of the Hebrew language, is a new immigrant, and so had to be working with someone that knew the history, the logic and the psyche of the Isreali people. Teitel’s wife of seven years claims that she didn’t know anything about his activities which is very hard to fathom seeing that the bomb making laboratory was in one of the rooms of his relatively small house. He built the bombs in the house where his wife and children lived.

From Leah Ortiz’s updates, via JewishPrincessMusings

KEHILAT ARIEL – ARIEL CONGREGATION

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AMI UPDATE november 3, 2009~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As David was coming home on the night that the gag order was lifted, a neighbor ran out to talk to him as he pulled into the parking lot. She told him that the officer in charge of the interrogation of Yakov Teitel had given an interview on Channel Two evening news in which he said that Teitel had confessed to all the murders and attempted murders that he is charged with. The officer revealed that Teitel said that David was the main target in the attack on our home and that he wanted to kill him because he was stealing the souls of Jews. She was afraid for David when she told him.

When David got to the house, I had been watching the same report and confirmed to him what our neighbor said. One of the attacks carried out by Teitel was a pipe bomb placed next to the door of Prof. Ze ‘ev Sternhel’s house in September 2008, six months after the attack on our house. Sternhel is a very highly regarded Professor of history who won the prestigious Israel prize and is known for his extreme leftist viewpoint. Teitel claims that in the attack on Professor Sternhel , his intention was not to kill him even though the police officer said that the bomb was able to kill. Teitel claims he wanted to give Sternhel a severe warning because he didn’t want to turn him into a martyr for the political Left. However, in the attack on our family, Teitel said that his aim was to kill the father (David). We were informed that the bomb placed in Sternhel’s house was much smaller and less powerful than the one placed in our house.

SHOCKING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Teitel’s intention, even though David was the main target, was to kill everyone in our home, including a friend, Roz Bailey , that was staying with us from the U.S. and the housekeeper who was working that day. We were informed by the police after they studied the security camera videos that the planning must have taken a year, and so someone close by must have been watching David’s habits coming in and out and the movement of the family.

At this point we know who that person was, sad to say. It shows how ruthless and cold-blooded Teitel is, that he knew who was supposed to be in the house on that holiday eve, and had no regard for those that were not even part of the family and no regard for the lives of our children that were coming home. At this point initial reports have stated that he claims to have acted alone. We very well know that was not true because on our security camera tapes, it is seen that someone drove Teitel to our house. The video tape shows two people in the car which circled our house twice before leaving him off. Plus, there were people surveying our hallway that we don’t recognize, coming all the way up to our door, before the bombing took place.

At this point, the Shin Bet , our secret services, are insisting that he could not have acted alone. Teitel does not have a good command of the Hebrew language, is a new immigrant, and so had to be working with someone that knew the history, the logic and the psyche of the Isreali people. Teitel’s wife of seven years claims that she didn’t know anything about his activities which is very hard to fathom seeing that the bomb making laboratory was in one of the rooms of his relatively small house. He built the bombs in the house where his wife and children lived.

The public is being reminded that the investigation is continuing to root out terrorist sleeper cells that are hiding and camouflaging themselves among the local residents. The newspapers report, and journalists have told us, about an Orthodox group who hold to the doctrine of what is called “Redemption” which claims that the reason the coming of the Messiah has been delayed is because of the tolerance of the State of Israel for Christians, left wingers and Homosexuals. All of these groups are classified as false prophets that have to be dealt with.

In light of this we’re reminded of Zech. 13:1-6 that says – one day there will be a fountain for the house of David (the government) and the inhabitants of Jerusalem (the people) It says that all false prophets will be cleansed from the land, and that anyone who is suspected of being one will be so afraid of being accused he will say, “I am not a prophet. I am a farmer, the land has been my livelihood since my youth,”. But relating to Yeshua, Zechariah points out that the Messiah will be mistaken with being a false prophet himself and he will be subject to the laws of the false prophets. On that day when the Lord reveals himself, and the house of Israel will mourn for him because of the wounds inflicted on him – he will be asked – where are those wounds from? He will say, I received them in the house of my friends. If that took place in the house of his friends, then we are no different. Ami received his wounds in the house of our friends as well. We have to remember that the Lord has not only invited us to share in His glory, but also in His sufferings.

Thank God that the Lord has always remembered His covenant with His people Israel and on that day according to Zech. 12:10 “… I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

ARTICLES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We’ve been asked if anti-human rights groups like Yad L’ achim and http://www.jewishisrael.com/, which are dedicated to demonizing and harassing Messianic Jews, were involved. I will say that Teitel is a perfect example of a man that has taken their ideology and message of hate and suspicion, and has taken it to the next level of acting out that message.

For a wealth of information on Yad L ‘Achim and others, y ou can check out www.jij.org.il which is the website of The Jerusalem institute of Justice headed by Messianic attorney Calev Myers. Also – a report was done about the arrest of Teitel on CBN – http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2009/November/Suspect-Arrest-Announced-in-Ami-Ortiz-Case/

Here are some articles regarding the issues talked about above: YNETNEWS http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3798779,00.html 12 years of terror: Could Shin Bet have done more?

HAARETZ: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1125515.html Shin Bet suspects Jewish terrorist behind more murders

Link

November 2, 2009 at 10:50 am (Corrupt Politics, DesertPeace Editorial, Extremism, Israel)

Yaakov Teitel’s weapons’ cache.
Photo: Shin Bet Israel Security Agency

With criminals literally in complete control of the government, how are they expected to control those that are still on the loose? Under the Law of Return, any Jew can move to Israel and become a citizen automatically. ANY JEW! There have been exceptions to that rule, but in most cases the process works smoothly once the individual verifies his ‘roots’.

Under this ‘Law’, we have seen the admittance of some of the lowest forms of humanity, these included kahane and goldstein. Another newcomer sits as Israel’s Foreign Minister, still another sits in a Paris prison as I write this.

We have recently witnessed a number of Government Ministers cancel trips abroad for fear they would be prosecuted as war criminals. This is the reality of the State of Israel, it is a state that is under the control of criminals. Just what are they expected to do?

The following two reports deal with the latest incident…. just one more of many…..

Was Teitel’s criminal record screened before his aliya?

As the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Israel Police announced Sunday the arrest of US immigrant Ya’acov Teitel, 37, on suspicion of deadly terror shootings and bombings spanning over a decade, the question was once again raised as to whether the authorities need to more carefully check the backgrounds of potential immigrants.

According to the Israeli authorities, the former Florida resident was known to the US authorities and wanted for his alleged involvement in violent crimes there, prior to his aliya in 2000.

Despite this suspicious past, neither the Interior Ministry nor the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) could confirm Sunday whether there had been knowledge of Teitel’s alleged crimes abroad before he was allowed to immigrate.

A spokesman for JAFI did say, however, that potential olim coming from the West are asked only to declare whether they have a criminal record, but are not required to produce police documents proving or disproving this fact.

Source

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘There are Jewish terrorists still at large in Israel’


A senior Shin Bet official said Jewish terrorists that have not been caught are still at large and may be planning future attacks, Israel Radio reported on Monday.The official’s comments follow the announcement on Sunday that settler Yaakov Tytell was arrested last month for allegedly killing two Palestinians and carrying out a string of bomb attacks.

Tytell is not mentally unstable, said the Shin Bet official, who described him as an extremist who firmly believes in his ideology and who acted carefully, decisively and with sophistication.

The official added that Tytell functioned on the outermost fringes of society and said he cannot be compared with other Jewish terrorists, including the Jewish underground and Yigal Amir, who assassinated former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 14 years ago.”You don’t need an underground with 100 people in order to cause grave damage,” the Shin Bet official said.

Tytell was arrested on October 7 in the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof after posting signs around town praising the attack on the Tel Aviv gay center. He was apprehended with a loaded gun.

Police found additional weapons and explosives at his home and another concealed location.

Tytell was remanded and interrogated for about three weeks without access to legal representation, a step that was approved by various courts, including the High Court of Justice.

Source

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also read the following, written by Joseph Dana

How dangerous are these people?

When I was in high school, I studied with a teacher from the West Bank settlement of Shiloh. He was an American guy who had moved to the West Bank out of a discovery of religion and deep feelings of Jewish ownership over the land of the West Bank. One shabbat I joined him at his settlement and stayed at his neighbors house. Waking up in the morning, I asked the family where their son was, as I was staying in his bed for the night. They informed me that he was in jail as a result of being caught walking to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem with explosives in an attempt to blow up the Dome of the Rock in order that a third temple could be built. The extremists are everywhere in the West Bank and one does not have to look deeply to find people, both in groups and individuals, that are ready to use extreme violence for religious and political reasons. I know that most settlers would classify themselves as peace loving people who believe in the right of Jews to have control of the West Bank. That is well and good but the bottom line is that there is a group of absolute extremists within the greater settler community that operate with the full knowledge of the settler community. These people would not be able to do what they do without the full knowledge of the great community and ultimately the State of Israel itself. Does anyone think that the Yesha council will come out with a statement saying that a real soul searching needs to take place within the settler community as a result of the arrest of this extremist?

The internal security services of Israel have arrested an American born Israeli settler who is responsible for at least two murders of Palestinians in the West Bank as well as a number of attacks against Jews including the leftist Zeev Sternhall. Avi Issacharoff makes the point that this settler’s mistake was targeting Jews as well as Palestinians because crimes against Palestinians rarely go to trial despite the efforts of Ta’ayush and Yesh Din. There is ample evidence on this website to support Issacharoff’s claim.

Settlers Near the West Bank Outpost of Asahel

What is a surprise in the news today is the amount of security forces that were needed in taking this guy into court as well as his treatment in prison which until now has been reserved for leftists and Palestinians. When he was plucked of a Jerusalem street, he was armed and security forces found arms caches in his house and another location. It is amazing that these types of people, extremist settlers that is, are some of the only people in the country that are allowed to carry weapons around. Perhaps, that would be a sensible place to begin an overhaul of our policy with these people.

As someone who deals with settlers on a regular basis, I hope that the government increases their crackdown on these types of people. Not all of the settlers are as extreme as this one caught today but there is a definite support base, like in most terrorist environments, that allows this activity to continue with implicit support. The coming days should feature a number of settlers and settler groups arguing that this person was somehow crazy and not like them. The sad truth, as far as I can tell based on experience with these people, is that he is not far off from the rest of the “proud settler” community that uses the state and its resources to continue to put us all on their path to insanity and implosion.

Source

Link

November 2, 2009 at 10:50 am (Corrupt Politics, DesertPeace Editorial, Extremism, Israel)

Yaakov Teitel’s weapons’ cache.
Photo: Shin Bet Israel Security Agency

With criminals literally in complete control of the government, how are they expected to control those that are still on the loose? Under the Law of Return, any Jew can move to Israel and become a citizen automatically. ANY JEW! There have been exceptions to that rule, but in most cases the process works smoothly once the individual verifies his ‘roots’.

Under this ‘Law’, we have seen the admittance of some of the lowest forms of humanity, these included kahane and goldstein. Another newcomer sits as Israel’s Foreign Minister, still another sits in a Paris prison as I write this.

We have recently witnessed a number of Government Ministers cancel trips abroad for fear they would be prosecuted as war criminals. This is the reality of the State of Israel, it is a state that is under the control of criminals. Just what are they expected to do?

The following two reports deal with the latest incident…. just one more of many…..

Was Teitel’s criminal record screened before his aliya?

As the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Israel Police announced Sunday the arrest of US immigrant Ya’acov Teitel, 37, on suspicion of deadly terror shootings and bombings spanning over a decade, the question was once again raised as to whether the authorities need to more carefully check the backgrounds of potential immigrants.

According to the Israeli authorities, the former Florida resident was known to the US authorities and wanted for his alleged involvement in violent crimes there, prior to his aliya in 2000.

Despite this suspicious past, neither the Interior Ministry nor the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) could confirm Sunday whether there had been knowledge of Teitel’s alleged crimes abroad before he was allowed to immigrate.

A spokesman for JAFI did say, however, that potential olim coming from the West are asked only to declare whether they have a criminal record, but are not required to produce police documents proving or disproving this fact.

Source

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘There are Jewish terrorists still at large in Israel’


A senior Shin Bet official said Jewish terrorists that have not been caught are still at large and may be planning future attacks, Israel Radio reported on Monday.The official’s comments follow the announcement on Sunday that settler Yaakov Tytell was arrested last month for allegedly killing two Palestinians and carrying out a string of bomb attacks.

Tytell is not mentally unstable, said the Shin Bet official, who described him as an extremist who firmly believes in his ideology and who acted carefully, decisively and with sophistication.

The official added that Tytell functioned on the outermost fringes of society and said he cannot be compared with other Jewish terrorists, including the Jewish underground and Yigal Amir, who assassinated former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 14 years ago.”You don’t need an underground with 100 people in order to cause grave damage,” the Shin Bet official said.

Tytell was arrested on October 7 in the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof after posting signs around town praising the attack on the Tel Aviv gay center. He was apprehended with a loaded gun.

Police found additional weapons and explosives at his home and another concealed location.

Tytell was remanded and interrogated for about three weeks without access to legal representation, a step that was approved by various courts, including the High Court of Justice.

Source

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also read the following, written by Joseph Dana

How dangerous are these people?

When I was in high school, I studied with a teacher from the West Bank settlement of Shiloh. He was an American guy who had moved to the West Bank out of a discovery of religion and deep feelings of Jewish ownership over the land of the West Bank. One shabbat I joined him at his settlement and stayed at his neighbors house. Waking up in the morning, I asked the family where their son was, as I was staying in his bed for the night. They informed me that he was in jail as a result of being caught walking to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem with explosives in an attempt to blow up the Dome of the Rock in order that a third temple could be built. The extremists are everywhere in the West Bank and one does not have to look deeply to find people, both in groups and individuals, that are ready to use extreme violence for religious and political reasons. I know that most settlers would classify themselves as peace loving people who believe in the right of Jews to have control of the West Bank. That is well and good but the bottom line is that there is a group of absolute extremists within the greater settler community that operate with the full knowledge of the settler community. These people would not be able to do what they do without the full knowledge of the great community and ultimately the State of Israel itself. Does anyone think that the Yesha council will come out with a statement saying that a real soul searching needs to take place within the settler community as a result of the arrest of this extremist?

The internal security services of Israel have arrested an American born Israeli settler who is responsible for at least two murders of Palestinians in the West Bank as well as a number of attacks against Jews including the leftist Zeev Sternhall. Avi Issacharoff makes the point that this settler’s mistake was targeting Jews as well as Palestinians because crimes against Palestinians rarely go to trial despite the efforts of Ta’ayush and Yesh Din. There is ample evidence on this website to support Issacharoff’s claim.

Settlers Near the West Bank Outpost of Asahel

What is a surprise in the news today is the amount of security forces that were needed in taking this guy into court as well as his treatment in prison which until now has been reserved for leftists and Palestinians. When he was plucked of a Jerusalem street, he was armed and security forces found arms caches in his house and another location. It is amazing that these types of people, extremist settlers that is, are some of the only people in the country that are allowed to carry weapons around. Perhaps, that would be a sensible place to begin an overhaul of our policy with these people.

As someone who deals with settlers on a regular basis, I hope that the government increases their crackdown on these types of people. Not all of the settlers are as extreme as this one caught today but there is a definite support base, like in most terrorist environments, that allows this activity to continue with implicit support. The coming days should feature a number of settlers and settler groups arguing that this person was somehow crazy and not like them. The sad truth, as far as I can tell based on experience with these people, is that he is not far off from the rest of the “proud settler” community that uses the state and its resources to continue to put us all on their path to insanity and implosion.

Source

The Israeli Authorities have done it again with the arrest of Yaakov Teitel, charged with committing every single unsolved crime in Israel over the last 2000 years… by no particular coincidence in time for the big Rabinaversary.

Yaakov Teitel has been charged with a long string of unrelated crimes committed with entirely different weapons over 10 years with no connection between them, except that after getting the crap beaten out of him for three days, Yaakov Teitel confessed to them. It’s not clear where exactly Yaakov Teitel managed to get explosives training, how he managed to make getaways from half a dozen crime scenes or even more incredibly smuggle an assault rifle past both US and Israeli customs… but the indictment does say that he’s actually the Jewish RAMBO.

Shin Bet spokesman Ilan Sheker has assured reporters that this is not at all a case of the Shabak grabbing some random mentally unstable right winger on their list and beating the crap out of him until he confesses to a bunch of crimes that it would have taken a Jewish James Bond to commit all together. And then planting a ton of weapons in his house. Not at all. The Shin Bet actually officially stopped doing that last year.

This is a totally legitimate case. Like the time that the Shin Bet totally did not send a guy to keep taunting Yigal Amir with chants of “When are you gonna do something about Rabin”, and then put a totally unrelated girl in jail for not warning them about it! Or creating a fake Jewish terrorist organization and then airing an undercover news report about it! No more! The Shin Bet now makes up only completely true stuff.

Anyway no celebration of that guy who got shot and we all felt sorry about it, cause we called him a Nazi… except it turned out that it was actually a Shabak agent who was holding up a Nazi poster… oops… would be complete without the ceremonial arrest of the right wing extremist for every crime over the last 2000 years… including killing Jesus.

I know those Shabak guys are great and all, but here’s my proposal. How about arresting some of those guys currently holding Gilad Shalit. Yeah I know, that’s too tough. It requires actually going into enemy territory and doing your job. Much easier to grab some patsy, scream at him and knock him around for a few days, and then dictate to him every unsolved crime he can confess to… so it totally looks like you’re not a bunch of incompetent thugs.

Anyway we can all sleep at night now, because Yaakov Teitel has finally been brought to justice for pipe bombing gay arab Jesus with an M-16.

J Street conference is on right now. Here is one interesting observation: Ami Ayalon, Former Member of Knesset (Labor); Former Head of the Shin Bet just said that he used to meet Dahlan, al-Rajub and others from Fatah and that, at some point, there were more Hamas operatives in the PA prisons than those in Israeli prisons! He said they shared intelligence, operations, etc. We fought Hamas together.

Pretty bad indictment, you can imagine.

I will be looking for recordings of this conference after it’s over. Let me know if you’ve found any.

Link

Septmber 23, 2009

by Akiva Eldar – Haaretz – 22 September 2009

A new report from Adalah shows how the courts and police attempted to stamp out opposition to Operation Cast Lead. “This is a time of war, and every incident harms the people’s morale.”

This was not a sentence in a right-wing journal, but rather a statement by an Israel Police representative during Operation Cast Lead seeking to persuade the Tel Aviv District Court to block anti-war protesters from the city.

Around the same time, in a Haifa Magistrate’s Court hearing on extending the remand of minors, Judge Moshe Gilad stated: “Anyone who enables remarks denouncing the state and backing its enemies, even as they rain missiles upon its citizens, must obey its laws, and certainly is prohibited from attacking police who come to impose order. It is similar to a person spitting in the well from which he drinks.”

Here are some of the pearls in Adalah’s new report: “Prohibited protest – how the law enforcement authorities limit the freedom of expression of opponents of the Gaza military attack.” The document, being published for the first time here, was written by attorneys Abeer Baker and Rana Asali. They reviewed and analyzed hundreds of rulings and detention requests, interviewed dozens of human rights activists who were arrested and threatened during the Gaza attack, and documented the behavior of Israeli academia during the moments of truth last winter.

The Adalah report was completed a few days before the Goldstone report was released. It harshly criticizes the damage to freedom of expression and the lack of tolerance for protests, primarily by Arab Israelis, against the attack on Gaza’s civilian population. The report shows that enforcements officials did not learn from the October 2000 riots, and did not internalize the Or Commission recommendations.

The authors wrote that while they worked on their report, President Shimon Peres accepted the recommendation by former justice minister Daniel Friedmann to pardon 59 citizens who committed criminal offenses during protests against the disengagement in August 2005. The president stated that the pardons were being granted out of an understanding for the young people’s protests, and awareness that this was an unusual, historic event.

The Arabs (and a handful of Jews) protesting against the bloody incidents that took hundreds of lives did not receive a fraction of that understanding.

“In all court decisions we reviewed, the authorities did not mention the reason for the anger of war opponents,” they stated. “The hundreds of dead, the injured, the destruction, the tragedy and the damage the Israeli army brought upon Gaza’s residents are not mentioned anywhere in any remand decision. The detainees were presented as lawbreakers and criminals who should be treated harshly due to ‘the situation,’ unconnected from the political climate of their protest.”

The war mobilization went up to the Supreme Court. Of seven appeals submitted regarding the detainment of suspects until the completion of proceedings, the court sided with the state in every case. Supreme Court Judge Asher Gronis stated in ruling in favor of the detention of a minor until the end of the proceedings: “Of course, when times change, the matter of detentions will be reconsidered.” He added, “When I say ‘change in times,’ this refers to the end of the military operation in the Gaza Strip and fewer violations in the Northern District.”

The researchers note that the “change in times” clause disconnects the detention from the circumstances of the suspect, and makes this a matter of a community’s behavior. They note that the detention law was intended to provide uniform tools regarding the revocation of freedom and does not differentiate between war time and peace.

Detentions as a goal

The Adalah researchers found that detentions during fighting became a goal in and of themselves. The police and the State Prosecutor’s office vehemently refused to consider releasing even minors from detention or restrictive conditions.

The state’s representatives in effect confirmed the detentions were designed “to send a deterrent message to the public as a whole and to the rioters in particular.” During another remand extension hearing, they acknowledged this effort was aimed at ‘deterring the protesters with force and detaining them until the end of the proceedings in order to convey a message to the public that such behavior is unforgiveable.”

These comments were made in a detention motion that the court found was not supported by any factual, evidentiary basis. Somewhat ironically, the police again defined the protests against the war as “a disruption of the peace.”

The prevailing trend around the world, including in Israel, is to try minors under proceedings that take into account their needs, welfare and well-being. Despite this, during the operation, hundreds of minors spent weeks behind bars awaiting trial. A review of several decisions regarding “daily detention” indicates how the police inflated the suspicions against the detainees, in order to lengthen their detention.

For example, on December 29, 2008 the Hadera Magistrate’s Court received a police motion to hold for another seven days two people suspected of rioting and interfering with a policeman carrying out his duties. The police representative argued that the suspects burned tires, threw stones at policemen and called for Jews to be killed. The court ordered them freed, stating, “The request to extend the detention is baseless and inflated, and it would have been better if some of the remarks in the motion had never been written.”

Under its obligation to uphold freedom of speech, specifically in times of conflict, the police used force to try to silence protest. Adalah found numerous testimonies indicating a widespread phenomenon of people being arrested merely because they were present at an incident. Average individuals were accused of serious violations, spent a night in detention and were brought to court handcuffed. At many protest vigils, large numbers of police showed up and dispersed the gathering with force, under the pretense that the gathering was illegal. The testimonies clearly indicate that not all the protests required a police permit.

In some cases, the police conditioned the release of protesters on their not taking part in more protests. Police used harsher threats to disperse legal anti-war protest vigils when there were also right-wing protesters there voicing support for the operation. In these cases, the police officials claimed that as few as three people is enough to justify crowd dispersal, declare the protest illegal and deem all the participants rioters. Protests were dispersed violently, and protesters sometimes suffered serious bruises. Buses en route to protests were commandeered and forced to turn around.

The Shin Bet General Security Service also took part in silencing protest; the police summoned activists, but when they arrived at the police station, they were questioned by Shin Bet investigators. Some activists said their interrogators asked political questions and threatened to persecute them and make them responsible for every violation that occurred during the demonstrations. The attorney general supported the Shin Bet’s questioning and threatening methods, saying that it was meant to calm the atmosphere.

The report accuses intellectuals and academics of standing by during the violence in Gaza and overlooking the collective arrests of peace activists. Only a few lecturers mustered the courage to publicly protest the military operation. Academics who protested the collective arrest of settler teens did not speak out against the suspected IDF war crimes and the collective detainment of protesting minors. Academic institutions hung banners and took out newspaper ads voicing support for the war. They stood by while the Shin Bet and the police charged at Jewish and Arab students protesting the operation.

For instance, at the height of the operation, the University of Haifa released the following announcement despite its many Arab students: “As a show of solidarity with IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza and residents of the south, the University of Haifa has made its central tower into a national flag … the university is not an ivory tower and is inseparably connected to the community. With this symbolic act, it expresses its great appreciation for the residents of the south and its support for the IDF’s soldiers.”

The ministry responds

The Ministry of Justice spokesman responded: “During Operation Cast Lead there were serious nationalistically motivated gatherings and rioting, occasionally accompanied by real disturbances including stone throwing and road blockades, and in some cases there was risk to human life and public welfare, similar to the events of October 2000 (albeit not on the same scale and not at the same intensity).

“Alongside police efforts to enforce the law and restore order, the prosecution needed to increase steps to enforce the law and prevent the spread of the phenomenon. This was done via increased enforcement, insisting on detention until the conclusion of proceedings, based on the reasons for the detention (primarily endangerment) and carrying out the law to the fullest regarding criminals, subject to the specific circumstances of each case.

“Court rulings, through the October 2000 events, called for detaining rioters – including minors – who were involved in nationalistically motivated disturbances that posed a threat to passersby and security forces, based on the specific danger posed by each detainee. The Supreme Court on more than one occasion determined that a person who throws stones at government agents seeking to restore order or at innocent bystanders may continue to endanger public safety and even human life.

“That the actions stem from ideological fervor, and take place in large and heated gatherings, make them more dangerous. This is a phenomenon that builds on itself. Once it became part of the agenda of those rioters, the court ruled that the threat to human life cannot be ignored.

“In cases involving the detention of minors, the prosecutors were instructed to ask courts to begin proceedings as soon as possible and to handle the cases quickly.”

LINK: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116114.html

Link

Septmber 23, 2009

by Akiva Eldar – Haaretz – 22 September 2009

A new report from Adalah shows how the courts and police attempted to stamp out opposition to Operation Cast Lead. “This is a time of war, and every incident harms the people’s morale.”

This was not a sentence in a right-wing journal, but rather a statement by an Israel Police representative during Operation Cast Lead seeking to persuade the Tel Aviv District Court to block anti-war protesters from the city.

Around the same time, in a Haifa Magistrate’s Court hearing on extending the remand of minors, Judge Moshe Gilad stated: “Anyone who enables remarks denouncing the state and backing its enemies, even as they rain missiles upon its citizens, must obey its laws, and certainly is prohibited from attacking police who come to impose order. It is similar to a person spitting in the well from which he drinks.”

Here are some of the pearls in Adalah’s new report: “Prohibited protest – how the law enforcement authorities limit the freedom of expression of opponents of the Gaza military attack.” The document, being published for the first time here, was written by attorneys Abeer Baker and Rana Asali. They reviewed and analyzed hundreds of rulings and detention requests, interviewed dozens of human rights activists who were arrested and threatened during the Gaza attack, and documented the behavior of Israeli academia during the moments of truth last winter.

The Adalah report was completed a few days before the Goldstone report was released. It harshly criticizes the damage to freedom of expression and the lack of tolerance for protests, primarily by Arab Israelis, against the attack on Gaza’s civilian population. The report shows that enforcements officials did not learn from the October 2000 riots, and did not internalize the Or Commission recommendations.

The authors wrote that while they worked on their report, President Shimon Peres accepted the recommendation by former justice minister Daniel Friedmann to pardon 59 citizens who committed criminal offenses during protests against the disengagement in August 2005. The president stated that the pardons were being granted out of an understanding for the young people’s protests, and awareness that this was an unusual, historic event.

The Arabs (and a handful of Jews) protesting against the bloody incidents that took hundreds of lives did not receive a fraction of that understanding.

“In all court decisions we reviewed, the authorities did not mention the reason for the anger of war opponents,” they stated. “The hundreds of dead, the injured, the destruction, the tragedy and the damage the Israeli army brought upon Gaza’s residents are not mentioned anywhere in any remand decision. The detainees were presented as lawbreakers and criminals who should be treated harshly due to ‘the situation,’ unconnected from the political climate of their protest.”

The war mobilization went up to the Supreme Court. Of seven appeals submitted regarding the detainment of suspects until the completion of proceedings, the court sided with the state in every case. Supreme Court Judge Asher Gronis stated in ruling in favor of the detention of a minor until the end of the proceedings: “Of course, when times change, the matter of detentions will be reconsidered.” He added, “When I say ‘change in times,’ this refers to the end of the military operation in the Gaza Strip and fewer violations in the Northern District.”

The researchers note that the “change in times” clause disconnects the detention from the circumstances of the suspect, and makes this a matter of a community’s behavior. They note that the detention law was intended to provide uniform tools regarding the revocation of freedom and does not differentiate between war time and peace.

Detentions as a goal

The Adalah researchers found that detentions during fighting became a goal in and of themselves. The police and the State Prosecutor’s office vehemently refused to consider releasing even minors from detention or restrictive conditions.

The state’s representatives in effect confirmed the detentions were designed “to send a deterrent message to the public as a whole and to the rioters in particular.” During another remand extension hearing, they acknowledged this effort was aimed at ‘deterring the protesters with force and detaining them until the end of the proceedings in order to convey a message to the public that such behavior is unforgiveable.”

These comments were made in a detention motion that the court found was not supported by any factual, evidentiary basis. Somewhat ironically, the police again defined the protests against the war as “a disruption of the peace.”

The prevailing trend around the world, including in Israel, is to try minors under proceedings that take into account their needs, welfare and well-being. Despite this, during the operation, hundreds of minors spent weeks behind bars awaiting trial. A review of several decisions regarding “daily detention” indicates how the police inflated the suspicions against the detainees, in order to lengthen their detention.

For example, on December 29, 2008 the Hadera Magistrate’s Court received a police motion to hold for another seven days two people suspected of rioting and interfering with a policeman carrying out his duties. The police representative argued that the suspects burned tires, threw stones at policemen and called for Jews to be killed. The court ordered them freed, stating, “The request to extend the detention is baseless and inflated, and it would have been better if some of the remarks in the motion had never been written.”

Under its obligation to uphold freedom of speech, specifically in times of conflict, the police used force to try to silence protest. Adalah found numerous testimonies indicating a widespread phenomenon of people being arrested merely because they were present at an incident. Average individuals were accused of serious violations, spent a night in detention and were brought to court handcuffed. At many protest vigils, large numbers of police showed up and dispersed the gathering with force, under the pretense that the gathering was illegal. The testimonies clearly indicate that not all the protests required a police permit.

In some cases, the police conditioned the release of protesters on their not taking part in more protests. Police used harsher threats to disperse legal anti-war protest vigils when there were also right-wing protesters there voicing support for the operation. In these cases, the police officials claimed that as few as three people is enough to justify crowd dispersal, declare the protest illegal and deem all the participants rioters. Protests were dispersed violently, and protesters sometimes suffered serious bruises. Buses en route to protests were commandeered and forced to turn around.

The Shin Bet General Security Service also took part in silencing protest; the police summoned activists, but when they arrived at the police station, they were questioned by Shin Bet investigators. Some activists said their interrogators asked political questions and threatened to persecute them and make them responsible for every violation that occurred during the demonstrations. The attorney general supported the Shin Bet’s questioning and threatening methods, saying that it was meant to calm the atmosphere.

The report accuses intellectuals and academics of standing by during the violence in Gaza and overlooking the collective arrests of peace activists. Only a few lecturers mustered the courage to publicly protest the military operation. Academics who protested the collective arrest of settler teens did not speak out against the suspected IDF war crimes and the collective detainment of protesting minors. Academic institutions hung banners and took out newspaper ads voicing support for the war. They stood by while the Shin Bet and the police charged at Jewish and Arab students protesting the operation.

For instance, at the height of the operation, the University of Haifa released the following announcement despite its many Arab students: “As a show of solidarity with IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza and residents of the south, the University of Haifa has made its central tower into a national flag … the university is not an ivory tower and is inseparably connected to the community. With this symbolic act, it expresses its great appreciation for the residents of the south and its support for the IDF’s soldiers.”

The ministry responds

The Ministry of Justice spokesman responded: “During Operation Cast Lead there were serious nationalistically motivated gatherings and rioting, occasionally accompanied by real disturbances including stone throwing and road blockades, and in some cases there was risk to human life and public welfare, similar to the events of October 2000 (albeit not on the same scale and not at the same intensity).

“Alongside police efforts to enforce the law and restore order, the prosecution needed to increase steps to enforce the law and prevent the spread of the phenomenon. This was done via increased enforcement, insisting on detention until the conclusion of proceedings, based on the reasons for the detention (primarily endangerment) and carrying out the law to the fullest regarding criminals, subject to the specific circumstances of each case.

“Court rulings, through the October 2000 events, called for detaining rioters – including minors – who were involved in nationalistically motivated disturbances that posed a threat to passersby and security forces, based on the specific danger posed by each detainee. The Supreme Court on more than one occasion determined that a person who throws stones at government agents seeking to restore order or at innocent bystanders may continue to endanger public safety and even human life.

“That the actions stem from ideological fervor, and take place in large and heated gatherings, make them more dangerous. This is a phenomenon that builds on itself. Once it became part of the agenda of those rioters, the court ruled that the threat to human life cannot be ignored.

“In cases involving the detention of minors, the prosecutors were instructed to ask courts to begin proceedings as soon as possible and to handle the cases quickly.”

LINK: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116114.html

The bizarre Swedish report led to a no-less-bizarre Israeli response. Bad and irresponsible journalism crossed paths with bad and irresponsible diplomacy. Instead of simply denying the report, Lieberman, true to form, acted like a bully. In his fiery response – from his disrespectful mention of the Holocaust to identifying every criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, to his ludicrous demand that the Swedish Foreign Ministry condemn the article – Lieberman caused great diplomatic damage to Israel. He even scandalously attacked Norway for marking the 150th birthday of its greatest author. However, the article’s damage to the fight against the occupation cannot be ignored.

For full article, visit http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1110401.html

The security Israel provides for Abbas and Fayyad is meant to prevent either of two possible scenarios. One is an assassination attempt by Palestinian extremists, such as the Hamas cell that was recently arrested for allegedly planning an attack on Abbas. The other is an assassination attempt by right-wing Israeli extremists.

For full article, visit http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1108777.html

“This news is not true,” Ad-Dameri said over the phone, “the Israeli media says so to misrepresent and to harm the status of the Palestinian Authority.” He assured Israel has “nothing to do with the security of the Palestinian President.”

For full article, visit http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=220414