CORRECTION: The tweet from the Shomron Settlers Committee on which I based some of the information below was later removed. Subsequently, the Shabak made arrests and Ezra Batzri was not among them. Hence the tweet was wrong.
Israel’s Shabak announced today it had arrested six Israeli Jews wanted in the immolation murder of Palestinian youth, Mohamed Abu Khdeir. The leader of the terror cell is Ezra Batzri, the grandson of a well-known Jerusalem rabbi and a member of the Jerusalem Beitar racist fan club, La Familia. Bazri is from the Jerusalem Har Nof, a primarily Orthodox neighborhood with a large Mizrahi population. Another suspect is from Beit Shemesh and another from the West Bank settlement, Adam. Several are minors and their identities aren’t yet known. They are being defended by the settler terror legal defense group, Honenu, which also defended Yigal Amir and other settler terrorists.
Unlike what I posted earlier, the conspiracy doesn’t seem particularly rooted in the West Bank (though one suspect lives there). Rather, the suspects are all ardent followers of the Shas party, the home of Mizrahi Orthodox nationalists. Until recently, the racist Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was the party’s spiritual leader. Coincidentally, the latter also lived in Har Nof. Another critical affiliation the suspects had was to the Likud-affiliated Beitar Jerusalem soccer club. Beitar has an ardently racist fan club called, ironically enough, La Familia (the reference to the mafia is probably deliberate).
A few years ago, the then-owner, Russian oligarch Arkady Gaydamak, wanted to make a political statement and brought five Muslim players from a Chechen team he also owned to play for Beitar. Within days people like Batzri burned down the club’s offices in an arson attack. I don’t recall anyone being arrested for the crime, which is par for the course.
Batzri’s grandfather is the head of the Jerusalem rabbinical court, a distinguished religious position. Another relative is a noted Shas-affiliated Kabbalist-wonder rabbi, Rabbi David Batzri , who was convicted of hate speech (Hebrew and English) in 2008. Their offence involved incitement against Arabs which occurred at a protest against the founding of a bi-cultural Jewish-Arab school in a Jerusalem neighborhood. He said, in a homily reminiscent of the views of Rabbi Yosef:
The founding of this school is an act of rot and impurity. You cannot mix the pure and impure. We [Jews] certainly must be separated from other peoples [Arabs]. You will stand in the breach against this and prevent it. It is prohibited to mix light and dark [ed., a veiled reference to skin-color]. Jews are pure. Arabs are asses. They are devils, demons, diseased. So why did God make them walk on all fours? Because they are donkeys. That’s why they build and clean [a reference to Palestinian construction workers and garbage collectors]. But they must understand that they are donkeys. They have no place in our schools.
In the context of Israeli religious hate, this is garden variety stuff. As I said, many Jewish rabbis say even worse. But what’s important about this statement is seeing how it was absorbed and implemented by Yizhar Batzri . Clearly, the tradition of homicidal hate runs right through the entire family. It’s not a surprise that it would manifest itself as it has.
Though I doubt this will happen, both Beitar and Shas ought to do a huge amount of soul-searching about how their ideology and theology (respectively) led these young people to the most heinous and bestial of acts. If Israel was a nation that valued democracy and these institutions refused to do the soul-searching there would be civil and criminal sanctions levelled against them. Beitar shouldn’t be allowed to play any official games for at least a year. Shas should be shunned by the entire Knesset. That won’t happen.
If you want to see why, watch this video and listen as almost an entire busload of Jewish Israelis verbally and physically assault an Israeli Palestinian on a bus, calling him “whore,” “murderer,” and shouting “Get out!” The ringleader of the lynch mob is a man dressed in white and a black kippah. It’s certainly possible he too is a Shas disciple or member of one of the other Orthodox racist parties. Though there are two police officers on the bus they do nothing except stand between the two parties. They make no attempt to force any of the attackers off the bus.
This is typical. Jews have impunity. Palestinians at best are suffered. There is no affirmative attempt to defend or integrate Jews and Palestinians inside the state. In this country in the 1950s and 60s whites who refused to accept Blacks were forced to do so by societal institutions including the courts, schools, military and police. There is absolutely no will within the Israeli state to do this. Until it does it will remain a crippled, stunted nation beset with ethnic strife, violence and economic injustice.
Here is another Facebook post by an Israeli congratulating the murderers on their “brave” act:
“Don’t stand by while the blood of your brother is shed.”
I’m proud. I never believed Jews did it. But nevertheless I’m proud and happy to see that there are Jews who could not stand it and remain silent.
I send a strong blessing and strength to the detainees (who I don’t know at all).
These terrorists weren’t terribly professional. They used their own personal car–twice. Once when they failed to kidnap a 9 year-old boy in the same Shuafat neighborhood where they went trolling for Arabs on the night the kidnapped Abu Khdeir. The only reason their first attempt failed was that the boy’s mother held on for dear life and screamed her lungs out. The victim’s mother reported the crime to the police, who “investigated.” But in reality Israeli police have no interest in solving crimes involving Palestinian victims, certainly if the perpetrators are Jewish. So an opportunity to prevent the eventual murder was lost by the typically racist, incompetent police force.
As I wrote earlier, all that these new developments signify is that the accused will likely be tried and convicted of murder. They’ll spend a few years in jail. Then a future Israeli president in four or five years will accede to the pleas of the settler-Shas cabal and commute their sentences or pardon them outright. That’s the way things are done in this Jewish state which was meant for us Jews and no one else. If we suffer non-Jews it’s because we are benevolent people and can offer the heathens civilization, paved (but segregated) roads and good restaurants. (irony noted)
I note a very small measure of hope amidst this river of hate. Palestinians from Hebron visited the Fraenkel home during their shivah to pay respects to the family. Also, a West Bank rabbi arranged for the father of the Palestinian boy who was murdered to speak with the uncle of the Israeli boy who was murdered. This was the man who bravely asked for no more bloodshed, saying that “blood is blood and murder is murder” whether of Palestinians or Israelis. It would be a mistake to believe that these individual acts will transform either nation. But small personal acts have meaning and value. Of course, if they’re not followed by real political change, they mean almost nothing.
○ One of six Jewish nationalists arrested confesses to revenge killing of Arab teen
○ Jerusalem Post: Nightmare scenario
○ We are all to blame for Palestinian teen’s murder by ‘Jewish extremists’
Dinah was not murdered. The guy who raped her tried to marry her afterwards.
Re: Cell Leader Murder Abu Khdeir
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“Unlike what I posted earlier, the conspiracy doesn’t seem particularly rooted in the West Bank”
Huh?
You posted earlier that: “..the terrorists are being harbored in a radical West Bank settlement. I said from the beginning they’d be found in Yitzhar or a place like it.”
Beitar clubhouse arson indictments.
http://www.haaretz.com/life/sports/two-beitar-jerusalem-fans-indicted-for-setting-fire-to-soccer-club-s-offices.premium-1.506196
@ Lou: Whenever a pro-Israel advocate uses ellipses ask yourself what text came before what he’s quoting. He is my entire passage:
That remains correct. Involvement of the IDF means either that they believed the suspects were in the West Bank or that the West Bank played an important part in the crime. For all you know (& I’m trying to discover this myself) the terror cell may’ve been apprehended there. The first passage you quoted said the “conspiracy doesn’t seem particularly rooted in the WB.” Rooted means that it sprang up within the West Bank and that the killers were based in settlements. At least one suspect IS from a settlement. But it appears that the leader of the cabal came from within Israel. His ideology isn’t different than settlerism. But his geographical location was.
I suppose the state will level the homes of these accused, before any convictions, as is established routine already. The bulldozers will of course punish the FAMILIES of these perps, won’t it? After all…
Don’t forget pre-emptive strikes, assassination of the Shas leadership and banning of its members to Ukraine.
“Though well known as a rabbi of a relatively ‘strict’ nature among the haredi public, like his predecessor, outside the community he is known for his polemic comments – namely against the religious Zionist party Bayir Yehudi and its voters. The most recent of such comments was when he called the religious Zionist public ‘Amalek’ – a derogatory concept used by some rabbis to describe atheism or threats to the Jewish people and faith.”
○ Rabbis Threaten Kerry with ‘Divine Wrath’
○ Right-wing rabbis compare Kerry to Titus and Haman
” So an opportunity to prevent the eventual murder was lost by the typically racist, incompetent police force.”
The ‘racist, incompetent’ police solved the crime as well as the murder of Shelly Danon, which may have been a ‘nationalist’ crime as well.
BTW. You scoffed and called me a racist when I commented that the police would solve this crime sooner than the murderers of the kidnapped Jewish boys would be given up by their ‘hamulla’ (clan).
@ Lou: No the police didn’t solve the crime, the Shabak did. The Shabak was the agency which believed the crime was Jewish terror. The police pursued the idea that it was an honor killing.
Use the word “hamula” again is the semi-racist way you have & you’ll move from moderation to banning. Unless you’re willing to speak of Jewish tribes & clans.
You wrote:
“Though there are two police officers on the bus they do nothing except stand between the two parties. They make no attempt to force any of the attackers off the bus.”
The two people in uniform seen in the video are IDF officers, not police officers, by certainty (according to their badges) . One can here in the video that they are waiting for the police to arrive. The two were most probably in the bus by accident. You can see in the video that they stand between the angry mob and the Israeli Palestinian, protecting him with their own body, and getting beaten along the way by the mob. Their act is courageous.
Please don’t judge people who protect other people with their own body from being lynched by an angry mob, if you haven’t been in such a situation.
@ Michael: The IDF personnel weren’t “beaten by the mob.” The asshole took a swing at the Israeli Palestinian, hit him once and the second time may’ve accidentally struck one of the officers. The soldiers only prevented a lynch, but didn’t do anything affirmative to intervene and end the altercation as they could have. There is NO sign of police or that anyone called the police.
If you make claims back them up with evidence. Saying they IDF personnel called the police or that anyone did isn’t factual based on that video.
I have been in a situation where I was almost lynched in Israel. I was among a group attacked by a rock throwing mob. You don’t know anything about me.
I should have been more clear:
1:05 – the soldier is saying to the Palestinian (who says that he wants to leave the bus): “No, you won’t leave – until the police arrives, seat down”
I didn’t claim that the IDF personal called the police, as you for some reason suggested. I don’t know who called the police, but the sound bite in 1:05 is clear enough. It also indicates that someone already called the police.
by beatings I meant:
2:00 – the senior IDF officer is being pushed by the mob, falling on the bus seat
2:22 – the other officer is being attacked by the the guy in red shirt
2:38 – onward – the senior IDF officer is protecting the Palestinian with his body from the mob’s beatings.
My point is that the IDF officers were most probably on that bus by accident, and its not clear from the video alone how could they have acted otherwise (apart from preventing a lynch, as you said, and waiting for the police, as I said.) They have no real authority – they are not the police. In your post it is still claimed that its the police. I don’t see the act of preventing a lynch as a trivial act, it takes courage.
And I take back the last sentence of my last comment.
Thank you. Luckily this was in 1979, when rightist violence was still relatively mild. They threw rocks at us and one hit me in the mouth. I’d never been hit by a rock by anyone. It was quite a sobering experience. Luckily it didn’t do major damage, but left an impression. The settlers have advanced from rock throwing to outright murder, I’m afraid.
As for the video, through the shouting, screaming and cross talk it was hard for me to make out as much of the conversation you did. Thanks for adding that detail.
The name “Ezra Batzri” is part of a hoax. The name Menachem Mendel Beilis is also making the rounds.. he was accused of blood libel in 1913 in Kiev.. and died in 1939..
@ Ed: At least you didn’t perpetrate the same lie as others who said Mendel Beilis was mentioned in the same post I published here. Another FB post clearly affiliated with Israeli rightists mentioned Batzri’s & Beilis’ name in the same post. The FB posting I’ve published here is from a different account & is the original posting. The other is clearly planted as disinformation. Which you’ve bought into since you’re part of the rightist hasbara apparatus. It’s YOU Ed, who is the hoax!
Ezra Batzri (b.1937) was Av Bet Din (Head of the Rabbinical Court of Jerusalem) .
“Though there are two police officers on the bus they do nothing except stand between the two parties. They make no attempt to force any of the attackers off the bus.”
The officers are IDF officers, not police officers as can easily be seen by their uniform and badges. As far as I know, they have no authority to force the law inside Israel. (Almost all) IDF soldiers do not carry weapon while in vacation anymore, so they had little to do, beyond what they did.
Religious Racism: Rabbi David Batzri and Son Yitzhak
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○ Palestinian life is cheap and disposable, but Jewish life is sacrosanct
I believe that only 2 Muslim soccer players were actually signed…unsure how many he brought over on trial…
For the record, the uniformed officers on the bus are one Air Force officer and one Army officer, not police.
Moshe is NOT a sports historian. He is a historian whose main interest is Jewish history in Germany pre-WWII. A focus of his work is the events leading to the explusion of Jews from Germany (his own family is from Hamburg) and the Holocaust.
The officers on the bus are not police officers, but rather military (Air force) officers on the way to work. As such, they have no legal authority to arrest anyone for hate speech. The allegations you made are therefore unfounded.
@ Nate: That’s even worse. There was official authority on the bus that refused to act. There were no police anywhere to be found to stop the lynch. Pitiful but expected.
“official authority” officers in the military are responsible for their unit. there was no police. you just raring to blame the Israelis for every bad thing that happens.
your articles on Gaza war are one sided totally. it seems to me you are full of hate on Zionism.
@ andy: That would be hard andy since I’m a progressive Zionist!
Thank you, Richard Silverstein, for this very valuable and crucial report about the
Jewish suspects in the killing of Abu Khdeir. From the “price tag” terrorists, to
the Hilltop Youth, to the remnants of Kahane Chai and the Kach Party, fanatical
networks have festered in the settlements. As I understand it, suspects that are
well-known to the FBI for involvement in the 1985 killing Palestinian Alex Odeh,
lived openly in the Jewish settlement in Hebron. Enough of blood and tears. Enough.
Thanks again.
The 2 idiots that torched Beitar’s offices were located and sentenced to 22 months and 10 months in jail. They were from Kiryat Gat area (Southern part of Israel).
it’s a joke. this name came from alilat dam in alepo in 1952.:
https://www.facebook.com/lan2lan.StatusHunter/posts/10152672954877176
@Tamar: It’s a stupid joke, which is about the level of Israeli ultra-nationalist humor.
Retweeted by ShomronSettlersCmte @vhadshomron • 7 jul.
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…
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Just one point — on your recommendation that Beitar be punished for a year — I think I’d hold the team less to blame and La Familia more. It should be labelled a terrorist organization or criminally outlawed somehow (like the Kach they admire) and its members, like those who Price Tag, should all be treated like terrorists in the eyes of the law.