Yigal Amir, assassin of Yitzhak Rabin, may have company in his maximum-security cell. Haaretz reports that Israeli police have arrested a settler extremist who claims credit for murdering two Palestinians, the bombing that injured Prof. Zeev Sternhell, and the Tel Aviv spree that killed two at a gay community center a few months ago. All in all, his terror activity lasted 12 years!
A resident of the West Bank settlement outpost Shvut Rachel was arrested last month for suspected murder and for his alleged role in a string of attempted murder plots, according to details of an investigation revealed on Sunday after a gag order on the case was lifted.
Yaakov “Jack” Teitel, 37, is suspected of killing two Palestinians, for rigging the package bomb which left the child of a Messianic Jew seriously wounded, for attempting to kill left-wing professor Ze’ev Sternhell, and for his alleged role in a series of warning attacks against Israel Police at the time of the Gay Pride Parades.
…Teitel, a resident of the northern West Bank outpost, was born in Florida and has moved back and forth between the United States and Israel over the last two decades. In 2000, he returned to Israel to live permanently.
…Teitel has confessed to murdering a Palestinian shepherd near Mount Hebron in 1997 and to killing an Arab taxi driver in East Jerusalem some two months later. He said that he came to Israel precisely to carry out attacks against Palestinians as revenge for suicide bombings.
There are several astonishing and disturbing facts about this story. First, that Teitel ran rampant for so long without being apprehended. This indicates to me that either the police didn’t care to find him or couldn’t find him even if they did want to do so. What does it say about their alleged intelligence within the radical settler community? Haaretz’ Ami Issacharoff asks whether Teitel would have been caught at all if he’d only murdered Palestinians, and points to the rather astonishing revalation that he confessed to murdering two Palestinians 12 years ago and was not prosecuted.
Of course Issacharoff is right to suggest that Israeli-on-Palestinian crime is hardly treated seriously. But I would pose the issue even more provocatively. Israeli police also have little more motivation to investigate crimes against gays of Israeli Jewish peace activists. Teitel in his way was almost as prolific as the DC sniper. Can you imagine such a series of crimes in the U.S. that would remain unsolved as long as these were in Israel? The only way that police DID capture him was through the alleged killer’s own public boasting on the streets of Jerusalem in which he took credit for the Tel Aviv gay murders via flyers he hung from utility poles:
Teitel was arrested on October 7 in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Har Nof, in Jerusalem, after posting signs around town praising the attack on the Tel Aviv gay club.
His posters were signed with the name ‘Shleisel,’ referring to the ultra-Orthodox man who stabbed and wounded a number of marchers during the Jerusalem pride parade a couple of years ago. Police also found posters in his neighbourhood offering a one million shekel reward to anyone killing a member of Israel’s Peace Now movement, that opposes West Bank settlement activity.
Imagine if Teitel hadn’t wanted to get caught and done such a stupid act leading to his capture. He likely could’ve continued on forever. What does this tell us about the settler community and its members who knew this individual, his ideas and possibly even his proclivity to violence and did nothing to stop him? There were those too who aided and abetted Yigal Amir in his terror.
The settlers are now claiming Teitel does not represent them. His lawyer is claiming he’s mentally unbalanced. Everyone who might be tarnished by a link to him will find a thousand reasons why they aren’t guilty and bear no responsibility. That’s the way of the world these days. No one’s responsible. Even the guilty aren’t guilty. And certainly the settler movement as a whole is least culpable of all.
Pro-Israel apologists like to point out that the Israeli left is traitorous or incites hatred and is just as bad as the right. Could someone point out to me anyone on the Israeli left who has killed a prime minister or bombed a Hebrew University professor? Someone who’s thrown a hand grenade at a rightist Israeli rally and killed a young Hebrew University student (Emil Grunzweig). Or who went on the rampage at a rightist institution and shot dead scores of Israeli rightists (Baruch Goldstein). No, the Israeli far right has murder and hatred in its heart not just for Palestinians, but for fellow Jews themselves.
It’s also no coincidence that Shvut Rachel, where Teitel lives, was also the home of another settler terrorist, Asher Weissgan, who killed five Palestinian workers in 2005. A close friend of Teitel’s in the settlement is Asher Richland, who was a close collaborator with Eden Natan-Zada, yet another settler serial-murderer.
And let’s keep in mind that Israel didn’t mold Teitel in his youth. The far-right ultra-Orthodox community in the U.S. did (Teitel grew up in Florida before making aliyah). If they were honest the American Jewish pro-settler movement would look itself in the mirror and say: “we have met the enemy and he is us.”
For months I have been advocating greater IRS and federal law enforcement agency oversight of the American pro-settler movement. It is a shande that it funnels tens of millions of tax-deductible dollars to buy guns and other equipment which these hooligan-murders use to kill those with whom they disagree. Teitel had a veritable arsenal at his disposal in his home. How did he acquire these weapons? From whom? Where did the funding come from?
But even if there is no direct link to the American Jewish far right, the federal government must concede that there is a culture of impunity run rampant not just in the Territories, but here in America itself. If you give these pro settler groups non-profit status you’re giving them a federal heksher for their abhorrent views.
H/t to Ori Nir for word on this story.
Again, bear in mind that the State of Israel is also the heir to weak states in the region, like Ottoman Palestine and the British Mandate. Indeed, largely untouchable Jewish paramilitaries featured under both, and the Ottomans were going to use mass deportation as a solution, really you are arguing for the vigorous use of the Emergency Regulations, which is not going to survive a challenge in the courts. It’s only not lack of will, but also the fact that people have rights even if they do something like the hilltop youth, where the lack of will in enforcing closed military zones becomes an issue. It’s also going to precipitate even more violence, cui bono? The State seems to be kicking the can down the road in hopes of pulling a French Algeria, where it can isolate the settlers as direct opponents of a done-deal peace, which is the kind of leverage it needs. Again, I get that you don’t like that the State of Israel is actually a very confused place with diffuse centers of power, and that the rule of law aids and abets settler disorder at times and doesn’t exist when they need to undermine it to get what they want.
No, I’m not. I’m arguing for strictly enforcing existing law & protection of their rights as suspects. If existing law was enforced the State would have tremendous leverage.
Well, that all would be very nice if there was an Israeli DeGaulle. But there isn’t. In his absence, the settlers only grown stronger. I’m afraid we can’t wait for Israel’s DeGaulle since that will allow the devils among the settlers to play.
No, rather it’s the lack of enforcement of Israeli law that aids & abets the settlers. Rather, Israel enforces laws against Palestinians only and even then it abuses those laws in coming up with ever more inventive ways to persecute them. Settlers get off scot free except when there is a particularly outrageous mass murder,outright pogrom, or similar incident.
“Settlers get off scot free except when there is a particularly outrageous mass murder,outright pogrom, or similar incident.”
And even then only if it is sufficiently high profile that the GOI or the IOF feels the need for a damage control PR effort.
And it bears pointing out that this is one of many pages the Americans have taken from the Israeli playbook for their occupation of Iraq, as well as Afghanistan.
Is there a typo in the sixth letter of the phrase “gays of Israeli Jewish peace activists” in the original blog”?
In other words, should “of” be “or”?
One of the problems with terror investigations is that the nature of the site, often including blast damage, destroys fingerprint evidence, DNA, and other “traditional” CSI-forensic information. Furthermore, the use of standardized military weapons endemic to Israel/Palestine in terror means that ballistics evidence may be less than useful. Jewish stealth terrorists (as opposed to suicide spree killers) within Israel tend to be caught when denounced, or when undetonated bombs can be traced back to a specific maker, or when something goes wrong with the plan and they try to proceed openly in public, or they indulge in publicity. Teitel’s lack of networking, relative lack of left-behind clues and devices obviated the first two, and he was caught when he did the last.
He was questioned and released for lack of evidence in the murder of Issa Mahamra, and no one else was ever charged, so there may be at least one homicide detective in the Israel Police who was arguing for him to be watched. There are a lot of unsolved homicides in Jaffa, Lod, and Ramle, within the Arab community, too, and resolving single-shooter single-victim cases in Israel is ridiculously difficult as communities circle the wagons for the reputations of both suspect and victim. Never assume complicity when physics, incompetence, and sociology are far weightier factors. As a civilian medic, I got tired of “no one saw anything”, but why would a shot-up Palestinian drug buyer give up the local capos to me or any other Jew? They have a business disagreement, I am The Enemy. Ditto the abused Haredi woman, or anyone else whose us-vs-them is developed enough. :-(((
Nice of you to speak on behalf of the Israeli police & excuse their possible ineptitude. All I can say is that many investigations in many countries of similar types of crimes have resulted apprehension & conviction w/o the suspect actually telling the police & rest of the world of their guilt as Teitel did here.
How do you know what clues Teitel did or did not leave behind? He placed two bombs. That’s a treasure trove of data for a good police department & forensics team, which apparently Israel doesn’t have.
He was released for lack of evidence when he confessed to both murders. What does that tell you? I should say “tell us” since it doesn’t tell you anything.
You are reading one line of Issacharoff as if it disposed of all of the facts of the case. I can assure you that the Prosecutor’s office has discretion and would have prosecuted if it had a confession to murder in hand. What is quite likely is that Teitel copped to the homicide and then shut up, leaving one of those miserable single-shooter single-victim homicides in which Israel abounds, in which the State has to prove everything by physical evidence with no eyewitnesses. You can do it in Tel Aviv with good forensics, but in Teitel’s case because of the Territories, that’s unlikely. It is possible that he decided to humiliate the police by giving them a confession and daring the Prosecutor to try him in front of an Israeli jury with no physical evidence. Where was the gun? Were the bullets recovered? Was an autopsy performed? We won’t know until his latest round of trials end, if ever, but he did not WALK at prosecutorial discretion as if they AGREED with his action, as if he’d killed an insect because of the Racist Apartheid State of Israel which declined to prosecute, confession in hand. There have been plenty of squalid prosecutorial foul-ups in cases where a kid was pistol-whipped and died or someone got shot in a confrontation, but “I saw him and I shot him” gets you jail if it can be proven, even in the Territories, once you say it. The problem was it could not, in all likelihood, be proven.
Two bombs is enough if you have the time and resources to throughly investigate a new bomb-maker. Basically, he was a small fish who slipped by a large security apparatus permanently overtaxed by a large terror threat. I think you have no real feel for life in a country with hundreds of unexploded bombs a year.
Teitel confessed to the two murders. Israeli police & the Shin Bet, as is their wont with Jew on Palestinian murders closes the case as quickly as possible & after doing as little investigating as possible. We all know the M.O. It’s routine.
Hey, I know you’re Eurosabra and possess super powers but would you mind telling us how you can assure us that the prosecutor would’ve done anything? Are you the prosecutor? Work in his office? Work for the Shin Bet?
Not quite. There were probably numerous Palestinian witnesses who know there’s absolutely no reason to cooperate w. the authorities since they don’t take Palestinian lives seriously nor do they value them a whit.
Do stop nattering on about Israeli forensics, murders, etc. This isn’t Israeli forensics we’re talking about. As you note, this is Occupation forensics, which is an oxymoron since I can’t believe the concept exists in the Territories.
If Israel frowned upon the murder of Palestinians then they wouldn’t let the settlers get away literally with murder. But they do. So they really don’t have much of a problem w. such criminal activity as long as it doesn’t seep over and involve Jewish victims. Teitel’s mistake was to go after Prof. Sternhell, a nice old Hebrew U. professor. You can’t kill Jews w. impunity. You can kill Palestinians w. impunity.
Sure, like the settler videotaped shooting two Palestinians who didn’t get jail & walked.
Teitel was a small fish? 12 yrs of terror activity in which he killed AT LEAST two Palestinians, wounded a teenage Jewish boy, nearly killed Zeev Sternhell, possibly killed or helped plan Israel’s only anti-gay massacre? Is that yr idea of a small fry? Actually, what you mean is that any Jewish terrorist is a small fry compared to the truly evil, dangerous Palestinian militants.
Israel has “hundreds of unexploded bombs a year?” What are you talking about? That type of hyperbole doesn’t work around here. It may work in Eurodudeville though.
Richard,
He confessed to the 1997 murders in 2009. Issacharoff’s phrase is ambiguous. You can believe whatever you like about the Israeli justice system from Seattle. I have known several very good and very frustrated prosecutors who have worked the Territories, and most of the problems come from judges, who prefer to convict for a lesser offense, and from higher ups in Ministry of Justice who send down an order to refuse to prosecute unless the case is ironclad (as Teitel’s case will be at this point.)
It’s a pity Palestinian witnesses don’t come forward, they don’t come forward often in Lod, Jaffa, or Ramle either, at least not in criminal cases.
Unfortunately that videotape depicted a confrontation sufficient to allow that particular settler to make a claim of self-defense. And, yes, they get away with a lot, as do many of the accused in Israel.
That’s a small fish. The Jewish Underground/Machteret Yehudit were big fish. There are probably plenty of unknown stings going on right now against big fish. One would hope.
For the rest, when are you going to serve on an Israeli jury? Never. The USA will keep making Jewish terrorists and anti-Zionists and we’ll continue to put up with it.
I don’t read it that way. The way I read it he confessed to the murders at the time he was a suspect and was questioned.
You’re whitewashing an entirely bankrupt system. It’s not judges or any particular party or any particular single phenomenon. The entire Occupation stinks to high heaven. There is no judge, there is no justice for Palestinians.
You’re likening Palestinians who see every day the impunity of the settlers and that the IDF & police not only stand by, but actually abet the terrorists. This is wholly unlike the situation inside Israel for Palestinian citizens of Israel. They ARE NOT THE SAME. You can talk till you’re blue in the face using yr facile comparisons & generalizations. But they are not persuasive. You’re one cool Eurodude. But smooth operators like you fall flat around here.
Horse manure. The settler clearly shoots a Palestinian from a distance, a Palestinian who is not threatening him in any way. The Palestinian is clearly not armed. The settler clearly has a gun. Of course the settler made a claim of self defense & of course the State accepted it. And of course the State discredited the grievous bodily injury done to the Palestinians who were shot.
A perfect example of yr bankrupt cynicism comparing Jewish terrorist & anti Zionists as if they were equally noxious, when everyone but you knows that those terrorists kill and the anti-Zionists (who hold far less sway politically than the terrorists) don’t.
I’ve got news for you, it’s the U.S. which is merely an unwitting accomplice to terror. But it’s Israel that is wholly guilty for allowing the terrorists to flourish.
Richard,
You are not going to get much argument from me on the features of the Occupation, given that it makes Israel-Palestine a much worse place for everyone. However, small terror, both Arab and Jewish, is much harder to root out, which is why spree killers are almost never caught before they strike. So there is a structural problem in that both Jewish and Arab “lone gunmen” are much harder to deal with preemptively. They either have to be denounced by their own community or (again) socialized to renounce terror. And, as before, the only person with experience in de-motivating terrorists in a constructive fashion is the head of the GCMHP, and he has other fish to fry.
Again, I see the issue more as US-ian interference, although Israeli-grown anti-Arab terror is a problem in and of itself. Perhaps a Hebrew-speaking Israeli terrorist would have been denounced to the authorities because he would have been seen as making “us” look bad. Teitel was invisible partly because he was not well-liked, not a Hebrew-speaker, not socially connected. What is possible is that no one knew or no one gave a damn if he was going to get himself killed hunting Arabs. Crazy American.
What we do know from the GCMHP of the 80s and 90s is that terrorists are most susceptible to dissuasion if they are doing it for the social rewards of imputed heroism, so short of getting rabbis on board, the ideological lone wolf is unreachable.
Teitel was not a lone gunman. Many, many knew him & the Israeli police say he had at least one accomplice so far.
More smoke. The Israeli gov’t has every means at its disposal if it truly wished to root out Jewish terror. But first it would have to deal w. the underlying problem of rooting out ideological extremism and pockets of resistance to state authority like Hilltop Youth and their allies in the settler movement. A comprehensive will to act is needed & totally lacking. The settler extremist movement could be broken in a matter of weeks if there was will. There isn’t.
It is much more likely that this is the case of a very stealthy lone wolf evading capture as long as his discipline held against his megalomania. People have to be seriously socialized against violent solutions on a personal level to avoid Lone Gunmen, and I think only a few of the more quiescent pietistic religious groups in Israel manage that effectively. The only person with extensive secular experience with micro-dissuasion of terror of that type is Eyad el-Sarraj of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, and he is (obviously) overwhelmed by more immediate concerns.
“…the rather astonishing revalation that he confessed to murdering two Palestinians 12 years ago and was not prosecuted.”
I don’t find that in the least astonishing. One of the first things that came to mind when I read about this case was that had he stuck to murdering Palestinians he most likely would never have been arrested.
It’s sad to see people quick to tear apart the Israeli police force. This clearly was the work of a single person with no similar method of operation over an extended period of time. To assume that he wasn’t caught because Israeli police looked the other way is a poor analysis at best. When a police force is gathering intelligence, they are talking to people who have intelligence to offer. You might assume that this man, because he was hanging fliers in support of another terrorist act, might have bragged to friends, but it looks to me like he had no friends to brag to. Resorting to this kind of rhetoric is eerily reminiscent of the thinking I hear from Islam. Israel is better than that. They are the protectors of God’s word. Praise God.
Thanks for the undying support of Pastor Hagee’s Christian Zionist right wingnuts. The police had multiple crime scenes & indeed many similar types of crimes which should have presented patterns for them to study & evidence to examine. The fact that the Shin Bet provided the picture for this post indicates they had him under some kind of surveillance. Why it took 12 yrs. to reel this guy in is a mystery & the Shin Bet & Israeli police should be ashamed of their shoddy work. Period.
Just a brief look at your blog gives one the sense that you support peace, despise bigotry or racism, and have an overall hope to make the world a better place. Namecalling doesn’t quite fit into that picture.
“The police had multiple crime scenes & indeed many similar types of crimes which should have presented patterns for them to study & evidence to examine.” So which is it?! Was it intended or shoddy?! You’ve asserted both.
“The fact that the Shin Bet provided the picture for this post indicates they had him under some kind of surveillance.” Really?! You sure see alot in that pic that I don’t. How much you wanna bet I can find an uncropped pic with two cops – one on each arm?! Hold on! Your own pic has a police uniform shoulder board in the lower left! BBC has a better pic if you google image search it.
Perhaps you should just surrender to God, thank Him for the salvation offered to you through Jesus Christ and start the loving!
Gimme a break. You’re a Christian ZIonist & don’t deny it which means you’re a supporter of the settlers & the Israeli police likely.
The line bet. shoddy work & deliberate negligence or malfeasance is very thin & I see no reason I need to pinpoint for you which side of the line this case falls on.
Today’s Haaretz notes the Shin Bet had him under surveillance. I don’t know whether they had him under surveillance for a few weeks or years. If they didn’t know what this guy was capable of & only surveilled him for the few wks during which he was attaching flyers to light poles, then their negligence in not identifying him is even worse.
If you try to evangelize in my blog you’ll be banned so fast yr head will spin. Not here buddy. Not now. Not ever.
You seem determined to fit me into a stereotype… in the arena of conversation and ideas, is it fair for you to dismiss my thoughts by putting me under an umbrella and moving me to the back of the room?!
I tripped across your blog on a google search because my “flashtraffic” from Joel Rosenberg left me wanting. I have no thoughts on settlers and only a slight understanding of Zionism. I am a police detective. I spend my days in funhouses filled with smoke.
When discussing these topics, it is important to realize which worldview is held. I try, with my basic understanding of the Bible to have a Biblical worldview. The Biblical worldview tells us that all nations will turn against Israel. There are two voices today turning that tide, Islam and the secular progressive movement. It’s a shame that both resort to untruths to fuel their hatred. Are you in one of these two camps?!
Did we meet before?! Maybe Southwest Michigan? Kalamazoo or Grand Rapids?
I don’t share yr “Biblical” world view though I do have a much closer relationship with those figures in the Bible than you do since I never abandoned their religion as yr ancestors did long ago.
I am a spiritual progressive & I resent & object to yr nonsense claim that progressives turn against Israel. Not only is the claim ludicrous but it is a violation of my comment rules (once again). Your views are based on gross generalizations that have hardly any basis in fact. Base yr comments on facts & verifiable credible sources. If you persist in implying that I have turned against Israel then you will lose yr comment privileges.
Hi Dan, R.Silverstein sounds really angry and you said you don’t know much about the settler movement, so I thought it might be nice for you to see a somewhat less radical view, take a look if you have a chance: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0921/p06s01-wome.html
Lovely, Yasmine must be selling West Bank real estate. Thanks for telling us about the happy shiny people who live there.
Gee, I’m angry about Jewish settlers going on rampages & killing not just Palestinians, but Israelis as well. Imagine my nerve at feeling “really angry” about this. I’ll have to remember to keep my eyes of the prize which is that settlers should be turning Palestinian land into little patches of suburban heaven.
His lawyer says he is “mentally unbalanced”. Just like the Seattle shooter who attacked the Jewish center. You yourself pointed out that since the Seattle shooter is supposedly insane, no lessons can be drawn about his relationship with Islam, even though he said he explicitly said hated Jews. Thus, should that be the case with Teital, you are in no position to draw any conclusions about his relations with “the Right”, the “settlers”, etc. Thus, you will have to wait until the psychiatric evaluations are in and his trial will have concluded.
BTW-the SHABAK is saying he was NOT involved in the Tel Aviv shooting.
B.K.: The usual patheticness. Teitel has a TWELVE YEAR HISTORY of mayhem including at least two bombings (one of which seriously injured a young child), two murders of Palestinians, the Tel Aviv gay center murders & numerous other acts. Haq engaged in one heinous act of terror. Teitel prob. has no history of seeing a shrink, taking medication or any psychological disorder, while Haq does.
You are beyond pathetic. You’re racist through & through. You simply can’t admit that the settler movement is riddled with violence & wishes, if it could, to overthrow the secular Israeli state & replace it with a Torah true, Arab-rein halachic state. And Jack Teitel is one of its stormtroopers to that end.
BTW, Teitel himself is claiming that he WAS involved with the T.A. shooting. Considering how well the Shin Bet has done in apprehending him I’d rather not trust their statements about this until they’re verified by a more trustworthy source.
From IRS website……
The Internal Revenue Service is the nation’s tax collection agency and administers the Internal Revenue Code enacted by Congress.
One knows, Congress is an “Occupied Territory”. Till one is able to change THAT status, efforts at advocating greater IRS and federal law enforcement agency oversight of the American pro-settler movement may not be successful as the revenue code itself might need a change!