"Where will Duma take Israel ?"

Thunderbolt · Jan 1, 2016

Where will Duma take Israel ?

Ive been talking to Israelis about the ongoing drama surrounding Duma. My survey is anecdotal. But my results are disturbing.

Duma is an Israeli-Arab village. On July 31, 2015, someone went into that village and fire-bombed a home. Three Arabs, including an infant, were murdered in that fire. Jews were accused of the attack.

This attack contained several suspicious elements.

-the house firebombed was not at the edge of town. If Jews were going to fire-bomb an Arab house, its far easier to fire-bomb an easier target. Why would Jews go into the middle of a hostile Arab village when easier pickings lay elsewhere?

-the house fire-bombed was not the only house fire-bombed that night. Another house, next door, was fire-bombed first. Eyewitnesses reported that, when the perpetrators realized that the first house was in fact empty, they moved over and fire-bombed the second house. Eyewitnesses also reported that the perpetrators didnt run off after that. They remained at the second house to make sure those inside didnt or couldnt come out. Again, if Jews were going to commit such a heinous act, they wouldnt linger. The Jews whove been accused of this crime werent known to behave this way. They arent stupid. Why would they increase their odds of capture by lingering?

-there are two Arab clans in or near this village which have had a long-term feud. The Arab victims here belong to one of those clans. The two clans have been committing crimes against each other for, it has been reported, almost eighteen years. The fire-bombing of first one, then a second, home (and then lingering, to make sure no one came out from that burning house) all seem far more likely to be associated with an eighteen-year feud-driven attack than a random Jewish terror attack.

-after the attack was reported to Israeli authorities, police (or security or military personnel) reportedly removed local CCTV tapes. Nothing has been heard of them since. Why?

-Israeli officials did not actually investigate the arsonor, if they did, it was not thorough. The bulk of any investigation was left to the Palestinian Authority (PA) police. But once Israel screamed Jewish terror, the propaganda value that that brings to the PA is so great, the PA has no incentive whatsoever to prove that Jews didnt commit this crime.

-At the scene of the crimeor, nearbyanti-Arab graffiti was found on a wall. The graffiti seemed consistent with similar graffiti left at a crime scene by Jewish youth called, hilltop youth. But then, Arabs have also been known to write such graffiti after a crime they have committed, to incriminate Jews. On what basis were Israeli authorities so lightning-quick to say that that graffiti had been scrawled by Jews?

-Israeli officials have been frustrated by this group of hilltop youth for some time. This group is not large, but Israeli authorities have, apparently, wanted to destroy it. They fear its existence. The problem for the authorities has been that few of these youth had ever been arrested for serious crimes because, police have found, there has existed little evidence that the group had committed crimes other than fighting with the IDF (Israel Defense Force) when the IDF came to knock down their homesor the homes of others not affiliated with them who lived in nearby isolated areas.

-within hours of the attack, before any investigation of value had finished, Israeli officials rushed to call this attack an act of Jewish terrorism. Why the rush to judgment?

-within three days of the attack, Israeli authorities secured from the highest echelons of the government permission to do something the government had previously refused to allow: give security officials the right to use administrative detention on Jews. Administrative detention allows the Israeli government to detain individuals suspected of committing crimes or suspected of preparing to commit crimes. These individuals can be held indefinitely (subject to a 6-month review). No charges need be brought against them. No reason for arrest need be given. No democratic due process is needed. Was this arson really Jewish terroror was it a convenient excuse someone needed to prove administrative detention was needed in order to break up the hilltop youth group without having to generate proof?

-within days (or, perhaps hours) of receiving permission to use administrative detention, several youth were detained and locked away. No charges were brought. Some have been held without due process for more than 140 days.

-by December, high-ranking Israeli officials announced, for perhaps the second or third time (one lost track) that no evidence existed to bring any of the detainees to trial. But the authorities also repeatedly declared that they know who had committed this crime. They just didnt have the evidence. The repetition of this we know who did it seems to have been the sole justification for the governments detention scheme.

-on December 20, 2015, a local Israeli District Court ruled that one detaineea minor--was being held illegally.

At that point, events related to Duma began to cascade:

-December 20: the Shin Bet (Israels Internal Security Agency [ISA]) announced a MAJOR DEVELOPMENT in the case: indictments will be filed.

-December 20: a tape recording from a hearing for one youth revealed details of what a prudent and responsible person would conclude was a desc‎ription of torture.

-December 20: on that recording (above), the detainee was heard to say he had attempted suicide. He could be heard begging for the ISA to kill him because he could not bear the torture any longer.

-December 21: Security officials promised again that indictments would be forthcoming.

-December 21: Israels [far Leftist] Supreme Court denied a petition by one detainee to see his lawyer.

December 22: Education Minister, and head of the Jewish Home Party, Naftali Bennett, announced that these hilltop youth sought to destroy the State of Israel. He defended the interrogation techniques used on the detainees as, legal.

-December 22: Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that ISA interrogations had been legal.

-December 22: Israel Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, calls attacks against the ISA (for the use of torture), despicable.

-December 22: Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked announced that no detainee had attempted suicide.

-December 23: a senior Israeli defense attorney said that confessions taken as a result of torture can be cancelled.

-December 23: a video of a wedding celebration purported to show hilltop youth celebrating the killing of the Arab infant murdered in the July 31, 2015 arson. The video, however, is actually unclear.

-December 24, 2015: an editorial in the Times of Israel presented Duma as more than a murder: its a wedge issue for Israel.

This editorial demonized Israels far Right and its Orthodox Jewsthat is, Israels religious Zionists. Regarding the Duma incident, the editorial claimed the Israeli far right has sought to deny the investigating authorities contention that the Duma killings were an act of Jewish terrorism (David Horovits, The dance of death, Times of Israel, December 24, 2015). In addition, the lawyers for some of the detainees werent defending youth who should be considered innocent until proven guilty; they were trying to blacken the name of the Shin Bet security agency for allegedly torturing them (ibid).

There was no attempt in this editorial to discuss evidence of torture as possibly credible. There was no attempt to explore potentially illegal actions by the ISA (withholding access to lawyers and denying detainees their religious rights, among them). Theres only the one presumption: the far Right and Orthodox Jews were taking us, essentially, down the road to Hell.

My own survey of both English-speaking and Hebrew-speaking Israelis is certainly unscientific. Its anecdotal. But the results are suggestive: these Israeli Jews arent buying the governments version of the Duma story. They dont buy the presumption of the Times of Israel editorial.

What seemed to anger the Israelis I spoke to was the video of that wedding. Most feel it was a set-up by the ISA (or its collaborators) to demonize hilltop youth with incendiary proof thats questionable at best, pure fiction at worst.

-On December 27, blogger Israel Matzav reported an unsourced Facebook post had claimed that Shabak and/or other security officers were at that videoed wedding, uninvited. They gained entry by showing their security IDs to the guard hired by the wedding hall (using a guard at a social event is a common practice in Israel). A similar unsourced report appeared on the blog, Abu Yehuda. Are these reports fictionor fact? Did security personnel really go to that wedding, uninvited? If so, why?

This Duma story keeps hitting us in the face. It snowballs. The longer it drags on, the more we hear about possible government manipulation and skulduggery.

We wonder, where is the government going with this? This is not what we expect from a democracy. This story begins to sound more like a Czarist blood libel against religious Zionism than justice in a democracy.

Where is Duma taking us?

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/7895#.VoD81MmyIWk
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"Nothing is more dangerous for an individual or a race than repenting imaginary sins"
Ahad Ha'am

For instance the imaginary sin of having burned alive an Arab baby and his parents.

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"Where will Duma take Israel ?"

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