Shabak Closes Case Involving Possible Murder of Settler-Soldier

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To understand just how completely twisted Israeli policing and justice has become in the past few months, you have only to read about this case.  Last week, an IDF soldier, Avia Anaki (21), was killed in a motorcycle accident near his settlement, Eish Kodesh (“Sacred Flame”).  This settlement is one of the most violent outposts in the Occupied West Bank.

The police and Shabak closed the case, calling it a motorcycle accident in which Anaki died after being struck by a Palestinian car.  The family has raised its own suspicions that there is more to the case than that.

Nana reports that the local settler council has obtained a recording of a fight that broke out before the accident between Anaki and other settler youth, against several local Palestinians from the nearby village of Hawara.  The recording notes that Anaki was flagged down by a friend who told him his car had been attacked by a Palestinian who threw a Molotov cocktail.  They then ran to a Palestinian garage where the attacker had fled.  When they got there they got into a fight with the Palestinian who they alleged had attacked them.

Police arrived and stopped the fight.  Shortly afterward, Anaki died on his motorcycle.

Now, an Israeli security source tells me that there may be something to the claim that he was killed as a result of the fight:

“If we would say we have serious doubts about his death being an accident, then we would surely have another ‘Duma’ as a revenge. So we decided to close the file.”

The source also notes that Anaki was a known member of the Hilltop Youth, thus making him one of the most extremist settlers in a settlement known to be the most violent in the entire region.  That would give a Palestinian further motive to try to try to run him off the road or kill him.

But what does this say about Israeli security situation, when not just Palestinians, but Israeli Jews themselves can’t get justice?  There seems to be a developing consensus among security forces that the most extreme and violent of settlers will henceforth be treated just as scandalously as Palestinians.  Instead of having a system that metes out justice fairly and dispassionately for all–you now have a system that treats (some) Jews as badly as Palestinians.

The police and Shabak who routinely botch the most obvious of security crimes, are so fearful of new Dumas that they refuse to solve the possible murder of an Israeli settler.