- Apr 17, 2009
- 112,910
- 38,374
Israeli Justice in West Bank Is Seen as Often Uneven
JERUSALEM — The how-to manual in Hebrew reads like a chilling premonition.
Among its recommendations, how to set fire to a Palestinian house: “Stock up with a petrol bomb, preferably of a liter and a half; a lighter; gloves; a mask; a crowbar/hammer; a bag to carry it all. When you get to the village, search for a house with an open door or window without bars.”
The instructions were recently found stored on a mobile device in the car of a Jewish extremist. The text was publicized by Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, on July 29 — two days before the deadly arson attack in the West Bank village of Duma that killed a Palestinian toddler, Ali Dawabsheh, and severely burned his parents and his 4-year-old brother.
The extremist, Moshe Orbach, who is accused of writing the manual, has been charged with incitement to violence and terrorism. Yet after a court hearing on Sunday, Mr. Orbach, 24, was released to house arrest pending a ruling on a request by state prosecutors to keep him detained until trial. He is home on bail, under parental supervision and barred from using the Internet.
Israeli leaders have condemned the firebombing of the Dawabsheh home, believed to be the work of Jewish extremists who left behind Hebrew graffiti, as an act of terrorism, and it has stirred a rare outpouring of self-reproach and soul-searching among Israelis across the political spectrum.
But it has also reinforced the sense that Israeli law-enforcement authorities have for years acted with laxness and leniency toward Israeli citizens.
...Israeli and Palestinian critics have long contended that the Israeli authorities treat Jewish perpetrators of violence with kid gloves compared with the harsh measures taken against Palestinians suspected of similar crimes against Israelis.
The recent events may serve as a watershed for Israel as it faces the quandary that much of the West has dealt with since Sept. 11, 2001: how a state can maintain democratic values while effectively fighting anti-democratic forces and terrorism within its own population.
Perhaps it's time for the "kid gloves" to come off.
Gadi Shamni, a former military commander for Israel in the West Bank, is calling for a “root canal” treatment. He told Israel Radio on Sunday that Israel’s battle against extremists like those who set fire to the Dawabsheh house should be the same as that against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
...Years of sporadic attacks by Jewish extremists against Palestinians and their property — known as “price tag,” a doctrine meant to deter Israeli authorities from taking action against settlements — have resulted in few convictions.
Security officials have cited as obstacles a lack of legal tools for dealing with Jewish suspects; their silence in interrogations — one detainee refused to do anything but sing for two weeks, an official said; and the difficulty of gathering evidence that will hold up in court.
“I ask myself all the time: Where are the teachers, where are the educators, where are the parents, where are the rabbis?” said Menachem Landau, a former deputy chief of Shin Bet, in an interview on Sunday with Israel Radio, denouncing the lack of cooperation on the ground.
“Nobody will convince me that the two or three or four or whoever who carried out the Duma attack — that nobody around them knows about it,” Mr. Landau added.
...Israel’s security services closely monitor Palestinian activities in what Alex Fishman, the military affairs analyst of the popular newspaper Yediot Aharonot, describes as “ ‘basic coverage,’ which involves collecting information about schools, mosques and entire communities.”
But when it comes to the Jewish sector, Mr. Fishman said, the Shin Bet “doesn’t want to spy on Jews, and the political echelon would never dream of allowing it to build ‘basic coverage’ about yeshivas, rabbis, religious and cultural institutions, regional councils.”
I think Israel is facing some difficult decisions - free speech, democratic values, religious extremism amongst their own and issues about justice, protection and law.