Israeli Professor Planned Wide-Scale Anti-Palestinian Terror AttackPlot

פרופסור שחר נבו מבר אילן מואשם בתכנון פיגוע טרור אנטי-פלסטיני נרחב. הואשם בגיוס קציני צה”ל וחברי כ”ס לתוכנית שלו

Israeli police arrested a mathematics lecturer at Bar Ilan University for planning massive, coordinated terror attacks against Palestinians and Israeli-Palestinians, in the hope of stampeding them into leaving Israel en masse.  He sought to recruit scores of co-conspirators to accomplish his plans that involved simultaneous bomb and shooting attacks in Arab villages throughout the country and Occupied Territories:

The…professor spent years developing a detailed plan he called “Ayit,” a Hebrew acronym for…“The People Will Carry Out Transfer.”  Under the plan…he intended to recruit 71 additional Jewish attackers and divide [them] into 12 six-person terrorist cells.  The cells were allegedly to arm themselves with pistols, rifles, axes and hammers and launch simultaneous surprise attacks in mixed Jewish-Arab cities and Arab [sic] and Bedouin communities, with the goal of killing hundreds of people and driving Arabs and Palestinians permanently toward Jordan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

…The indictment describes an even broader element of the alleged plan: assistance from people the defendant hoped to recruit from within the IDF.

…He envisioned sympathetic military personnel providing coordinated support to the attacking cells, including Air Force strikes on Arab population centers and assistance from artillery and armored forces.

One passage allegedly instructed participants not to show mercy, including toward women and children, and not to stop in response to pleas.

…The professor believed simultaneous mass attacks, amplified in real time on social media, would prompt Arab citizens of Israel, including Bedouins, as well as Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, to flee.

His identity is being shielded by police who’ve obtained a gag order.  His attorney has requested extension of the order because exposing him “could harm the State of Israel internationally.” Yet exposure of the plot alone would not?

Nevertheless, an anonymous individual provided me his name and a link to his academic profile. He is Prof. Shahar Nevo, associate professor of exact sciences and senior faculty in the University’s mathematics department.  He is 60 years old and lives in Petah Tikvah.   He has requested being remanded to house arrest claiming ironically:

“I don’t see who I am dangerous to. If they want to publish this, do it without my name,” he said. “All the prison guards are Muslim and I am afraid. Israel is a small country. Some of them tell me they know what I am accused of. I am alone there.”

His intended victims might have a different perspective.

He further defended himself and the motives for his terrorism as an act of national altruism:

“I didn’t do anything for myself. I buried my life for three years,” he said. “I don’t think I should be punished.”

Undoubtedly, the Israeli justice system will ultimately agree with him. His lawyer has already plotted a mental illness defense that other Jewish terrorists have used to great effect. But Nevo has rejected it:

During a court hearing following his arrest, the suspect said that his lawyer suggested that he would “act a little crazy,” saying it “would help him” reduce his sentence. “[But] I’m completely competent and stand by my actions,” he added.

Of course he does. Because he is a radical messianist who believes that God demands that he exterminate Palestinians.  There is nothing that fuels genocide better than religious fervor.  It is politics dressed in tallis and tefillin.

Regardless of whether he is competent or incompetent, the court will slap him with a light sentence and the President will ultimately issue a pardon.  This is the way justice is done there.

Nevo spent 18 months seeking to recruit participants without success. Why didn’t any of them report this to the authorities?  And if they did, why did it take this long to arrest him?  One clue may be that the Shin Bet is now run by a Judeo-Nazi former IDF general, David Zini.  He has virtually dismantled the Jewish anti-terror unit, which normally would investigate this type of crime.  In fact, it’s a wonder the Shin Bet didn’t aid Nevo, rather than thwart him.

His plan may have unraveled when he began to send threatening letters to former far-right MK, Moshe Feiglin, who had ignored his recruitment efforts. The messages seem to have motivated Feiglin to report them to the Shin Bet.

Bar Ilan has suspended Nevo and issued a statement filled with performative outrage and indignation:

“The University has, and will continue to have, zero tolerance for conduct of this nature, conduct that is fundamentally incompatible with the values we share as Jews, as Israelis, and as human beings, and that stands in clear opposition to the values of Bar-Ilan University.

Bar Ilan is Israel’s leading Orthodox university. It is the academic home to numerous far-right faculty members and is a fortress of religious Zionism.  The latter has become the beating heart of the messianist settler movement, its intellectual champion. The attempt to argue that it, or any institution in Israel has zero tolerance for terrorist plots is ludicrous. The entire country is based on terrorism and genocide.  The only difference between this and Nevo’s plot is that he was freelancing, while the IDF pursues the same policies as state-sponsored terrorism.

Though Nevo’s plan indicates someone with a grandiose thought disorder and a likely mental health diagnosis, that does not explain or excuse his behavior.  Nor does it mark him as unique or aberrant.  There are literally thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of Israelis who would willingly participate in such a plot if they did not fear apprehension or physical danger.  If they thought they could get away with it they’d do it in a heartbeat. Polls show the majority of Israelis support mass expulsion.

After all, senior Israeli ministers, university presidents, MKs, performing artists, advocate the complete elimination of Palestinians. The only difference is that they advocate “voluntary transfer,” which is a fig leaf for their real intent, which is forced expulsion.  The ministers also advocate mass terror attacks by West Bank settlers which have depopulated 65 villages and 5,000 residents.  They too have a plan to do what the IDF has done in Gaza. To squeeze the West Bank population into ever smaller pockets, depriving them of land, sustenance and income until, they presume, they will be forced to leave.

As I wrote above, the only difference between these plans is that Nevo was more direct and immediate.  He advocated mass, coordinated attacks.  Ben Gvir and Smotrich are orchestrating a gradual plan of suffocation.  It will lead to virtually the same result.