Gays, Arabs, Christians, Left-Wingers: He Wanted to Kill Them All
The rumours have been flying around for a week or so now.
However, it is now official:
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Israel Police have arrested an American-born Jewish settler who is allegedly behind an unprecedented series of deadly terror shootings and bombings spanning over a decade, in which two Palestinians were killed and Israel Prize Laureate Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell was injured. According to the Shin Bet, he also planted a bomb at the entrance to house of a messianic family in Ariel, seriously wounding their son, then-15-year-old Ami Ortiz.
Yaakov “Jack” Teitel, 37, was arrested by the Israel Police’s elite counter-terror unit YAMAM on October 7th as he was hanging flyers in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof in support of the attack on a Tel Aviv gay and lesbian youth club in August in which two people were killed.
Ynet reports:
So far, Teitel has confessed to carrying out the following:
* The 1997 murder of an east Jerusalem taxi driver
* The 1997 murder of a Palestinian shepherd south of Mount Hebron
* Placing an explosive device in the Ramallah-adjacent settlement of Eli in 2006 – the device was found and disarmed safely
* Placing an explosive device near a Beit Shemesh monetary in 2007, which resulted in one Palestinian injured
* A 2007 explosion which took place in the Ramot neighborhood in Jerusalem – a police cruiser was severely damaged, but no injuries were reported
* Hurling explosives at a police car in June 2007 – no injuries or damage were reported
* Sending a parcel bomb to a messianic family residing in Ariel, which resulted in a 15-year-old boy suffering severe injuries
* Placing a pipe bomb near Prof. Zeev Sternhell’s Jerusalem home in September of 2008 – Sternhell was lightly wounded.Teitel immigrated to Israel seven years ago, but made numerous prior visits to the country. Police believe he was able to smuggle 10 guns and rifles from the US to Israel, starting in 1997, including an M-16 rifle, a Ruger sniper rifle and a Glock handgun.
I had heard speculation last week that Teitel might have committed the recent murders at the LGBT Centre in Tel Aviv. However, Shin Bet have confirmed that Teitel “was not the gunman in that attack”. He certainly approved of them.
He attempted to bomb police stations and patrols because they provided security for gay pride parades.
…
Teitel is not suspected of being responsible for the shooting attack against a gay youth center in Tel Aviv in August, in which two people were killed, though Israeli media said he confessed to that attack as well.
Haaretz has further background on this man. He was, apparently, a ‘loner’ who apparently did not associate with those active on the Israeli extreme Right, although he had a friend who was a Kahanist.
Professor Sternhell sums it up well:
“I’m glad to learn that the great efforts by the police and Shin Bet paid off,” said the Israel Prize laureate.
“This is an important day for Israeli democracy. The attempt to hurt someone simply due to his political views was a dangerous step down the slippery slope of a citizen’s right to affect politics and society in Israel.”Israeli society as a whole stood to pay a price had he not been arrested and I hope authorities will deal with this terrorist as it does any other terrorist, Jewish or Arab.”
Words cannot express my disgust at this fascist. I doubt that anybody here disagrees.
UPDATE
Netanyahu said:
“There is still among us a minority that is not prepared to accept democracy and are not prepared to accept the rule of law,” said Netanyahu in a statement after news of the arrest broke.
“They do not represent the majority of the nation,” the prime minister added. “They are a small and marginal group, but we have already seen the strength and damage of one murderer. We must continue to condemn the use of violence and to use all legal power against any attempt at violence.”
Comments
| 1 November 2009, 7:45 pm |
What can one do but agree!!!
| 1 November 2009, 7:49 pm |
This guy is clearly a crazy individual; does he deserve a posting on this blog?
| 1 November 2009, 7:54 pm |
He seems to have a clear ideological framework to his ‘craziness’.
| 1 November 2009, 7:56 pm |
This guy is clearly a crazy individual; does he deserve a posting on this blog?
Most of the posts on this blog are about individuals who seem pretty crazed!
Sometimes the crazy individuals even end up leaving comments here!
| 1 November 2009, 8:32 pm |
Hope he goes down for a very long stretch. Note — the key issue is the rule of law, and the need to enforce it on those who think their personal conviction of their own rectitude and moral imperatives override the law, whether or not they actually murder people like this particular terrorist.
| 1 November 2009, 8:33 pm |
Sorry what do you mean:
whether or not they actually murder people like this particular terrorist.
I think there’s a big difference between murderers and non-murderers. As would their victims.
| 1 November 2009, 9:19 pm |
Martin, gee let me think… yes.
Maybe this was his synagogue in America:
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2009/10/dovbear-call-to-arms.html
| 1 November 2009, 9:34 pm |
They did a good job catching this guy. He didn’t go after the same victim group every time, he didn’t have a “signature” method, he spaced out his attacks timewise, he moved around, and he operated alone. So they had their work cut out tracking him down.
I hope they have whole-of-life sentences in Israel, because society should never be asked to assume that this guy has “reformed”.
| 1 November 2009, 10:34 pm |
Zeev Sternhell is not one to talk about democracy and freedom.
Quite recently there was an article in Haaretz where he asserted the right to personally intercede and control what books Israeli youth should be allowed to read. The books in question were authored by the brilliant but murderously anti-semitic Frenchman Louis Ferdinand Celine. Sternhell demanded that publication of Celine’s works in Israel be controlled, and that he, Sternhell, be appointed a sort of intermediary and interpreter through whom the man’s writings would be delivered to the reading public. It was quite a bizarre and strange article, but as far as I know it has never been disowned by Sternhell.
What is a Beit Shemesh monetary ?
| 1 November 2009, 10:40 pm |
I share the delight at the capture of the alleged terrorist but wish to emphasize that, before he has been found guilty in a court of law, he is just a suspect. No matter how vile the deeds he might have committed.
Yes, it might be pompous nitpicking. But that pompous nitpicking is what stands between law and mob justice.
| 1 November 2009, 10:47 pm |
What is a Beit Shemesh monetary ?
A solar-powered cash dispenser?
| 1 November 2009, 11:31 pm |
He may be an alleged terrorist, S, but I don’t think it’s remarkable to say he is an attested supporter of terrorist acts.
Out of interest, any update about the shootings at the Tel Aviv gay disco?
| 1 November 2009, 11:46 pm |
OK, an update. According to Haaretz, he has confessed to at least one murder. So, not alleged anymore…
And, apparently, he isn’t connected to the murder in the Tel Aviv gay centre. Sadly, there are more homicidal sociopaths around…
| 2 November 2009, 2:23 am |
Lock him up, and throw away the key.
What a piece of shiiiiiiiit.
| 2 November 2009, 2:27 am |
Thank goodness they caught him.
| 2 November 2009, 7:43 am |
Reading this, I can fully appreciate that you are not a blind ideologue and that you do occasionally criticism Israel and elements of Jewish Israeli society.
happy?
| 2 November 2009, 7:44 am |
should read “level criticism at”
preview buttons don’t do it
| 2 November 2009, 8:21 am |
yes this guy was a fanatic and extremist thank God they caught him, but as usual everywhere a sinister point is missed. how is this guy more of a fanatic than say your average Hamas supporter? or even many a Fatah supporter, or Hezbollah supporter? You may say he isn’t and that I am making a straw-man point, but I’m not.
So this guy is a fanatic but Mahmoud Abbas a Holocaust Revisionist who praises suicide bombers as martyrs, and calls Hamas “brothers in arms” and heads an organisation that calls for Israel’s destruction on its constitution is a …moderate according to the same usual suspects (media, Leftists and oh yes HP) who are blabbering on about this Jewish extremist now. Such a double standard can only be explained by anti-Jewish sentiment. There are literally millions of extremists just like Teitel in the Middle-East but unfortunately because they are Muslim Arab, it’s nothing to bring up or acknowledge too much.
In Israel the govt arrests and charges an extremist terrorist like Teitel with the crimes he is guilty of. In the Left’s precious Palestine, such terrorists are revered, have streets named after them, are praised in school textbooks and the mosques, and PA controlled media and earn the praise of the “moderate” leadership including Abbas and his predecessor Arafat.
Jews are held to high standards, Muslims to no standards at all, the only explanation – anti-Jewish prejudice. And HP is as guilty as the rest. There is no decent Left and HP proves the point. When you guys start calling Abbas the terrorist that he is, only then can you be taken seriously, not before.
| 2 November 2009, 8:21 am |
yes this guy was a fanatic and extremist thank God they caught him, but as usual everywhere a sinister point is missed. how is this guy more of a fanatic than say your average Hamas supporter? or even many a Fatah supporter, or Hezbollah supporter? You may say he isn’t and that I am making a straw-man point, but I’m not.
So this guy is a fanatic but Mahmoud Abbas a Holocaust Revisionist who praises suicide bombers as martyrs, and calls Hamas “brothers in arms” and heads an organisation that calls for Israel’s destruction on its constitution is a …moderate according to the same usual suspects (media, Leftists and oh yes HP) who are blabbering on about this Jewish extremist now. Such a double standard can only be explained by anti-Jewish sentiment. There are literally millions of extremists just like Teitel in the Middle-East but unfortunately because they are Muslim Arab, it’s nothing to bring up or acknowledge too much.
In Israel the govt arrests and charges an extremist terrorist like Teitel with the crimes he is guilty of. In the Left’s precious Palestine, such terrorists are revered, have streets named after them, are praised in school textbooks and the mosques, and PA controlled media and earn the praise of the “moderate” leadership including Abbas and his predecessor Arafat.
Jews are held to high standards, Muslims to no standards at all, the only explanation – anti-Jewish prejudice. And HP is as guilty as the rest. There is no decent Left and HP proves the point. When you guys start calling Abbas the terrorist that he is, only then can you be taken seriously, not before.
| 2 November 2009, 10:29 am |
Another good reason if ever there was one to revise the Law of Return
| 2 November 2009, 10:55 am |
Are the BNP supporting him ?
| 2 November 2009, 11:55 am |
Good riddance. I’m against capital punishment, but I can’t help feeling what a pity it is that Israel doesn’t have the electric chair for scum like this.
| 2 November 2009, 12:17 pm |
Thank you Lev for your comment. For if it were so we would not now have idiot left wing politicians in Israel talking about allowing the arch terrorist Barghoutti go free – since there would be no one to free! As to Teitel one shudders to think, on the supposition he is found guilty of what he is accused, that such a person walked among us and our dear ones …
| 2 November 2009, 1:49 pm |
@Vertovian: I have no idea. The BNP do support Eli Yishai’s vision of Israel…
| 2 November 2009, 6:10 pm |
“Such a double standard can only be explained by anti-Jewish sentiment. ”
Harry’s place is anti-Jewish? That’s weird. You do your cause no favours with argument de Tu QueQuo. This is a shut and dried case.
I personally dont think the guy was influenced by any ideological framework whatsoever, these kinda guys – loners – can hardly be natural nationalists since nationalism is tribal ( see Northern Ireland) .
I think the loners, in different eras, go after the establishment, or what is perceived as the establishment. The Unabomber went after the “corporate” establishment, the modern loner goes after the leftwing establishment, as he sees it.
| 2 November 2009, 6:46 pm |
Not all security sources are convinced that he is the loner that he has fessed up to be. In fact security sources say more teitelite terrorists are at large and planning attacks: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1125288.html
| 3 November 2009, 12:25 am |
hmmm, I don’t supose Ha’aretz might have a not-so hidden agenda.
| 3 November 2009, 3:42 am |
Larry,
There is no excuse for the things this man did, or those of which he is accused. Period. There is nothing anti-Jewish in saying so, nor in trying him and punishing him according to the law. Civilized societies have a right to defend themselves from within, as well as from without, and someone like this is a menace to everyone.
That the Arabs honor sickos like this man says a lot about their societies. But that has no bearing whatsoever on what decent, civilized people do. Just because my neighbors used to let their kids run wild didn’t mean that I was not going to bring my children up with standards. (If all of the other kids’ mothers were going to let them jump off the Empire State Building, do you in your wildest imagination think I would let you do it too?)
If he did everything of which he is accused, then he is a terrorist, a murderer, and deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison.
| 3 November 2009, 1:55 pm |
Anat your post is a straw-man. I never said this Jewish terrorist is anything other than an extremist sicko who deserves to be jailed. My point is this – how is he any worse than Abbas (who supports suicide bombings remember) and other fanatics in Fatah who are portrayed as moderates by HP regulars (and others on the Left)? That is what I mean by a double-standard. I realise that the point I was making is difficult for many HP regulars to comprehend. Sigh.
Ze’ev Sternhell says this is an important day for Israeli democracy:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3798693,00.html