Israel holds six in death
The arrests come about aweek after the grisly slaying of an Arab teen.
Jerusalem » Israel reckoned with rising homegrown extremism Sunday as it arrested six Jewish suspects who are thought to have burned to death an Arab teenager in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teens.
The arrests shocked those on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide — Palestinians because many had assumed Israel would never act against its own, and Israelis because there had been widespread doubt that Jews could have carried out such a heinous crime.
The action Sunday could help defuse what has been seen as a dangerous swelling of Palestinian anger, with violent protests in East Jerusalem and Arab towns in northern Israel feeding fears of a budding intifada. Demonstrators who have called for an uprising against the Israeli occupation have decried the lack of justice and had bitterly predicted that 16-year-old Mohammad Abu Khieder’s killers would never face trial.
By arresting the suspects, whowere said by security officials to have killed Khieder for “nationalistic” reasons, the Israeli government must confront extremist elements within its society.
Some Israeli officials had speculated that the slaying was the result of a family dispute amid disbelief that it could be revenge for the deaths of the three Israelis.
“This a shock for most Israeli Jews, and I think it’s a kind of wake-up call,” said Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday evening. “This is something that will change the way people think, and it will lead to a better understanding that we need to act when we see even the smallest signs of incitement.”
Visiting the home of one of the Israeli teens slain last month after being abducted in the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Khieder’s killers would “face the full weight of the law.”
He also called on the Palestinian Authority, which controls some areas of the West Bank, to go after the killers of the Israelis — 16-year-old Naftali Fraenkel, 16year-old Gilad Shaar and 19-yearold Eyal Yifrach. Israel blames the killings on the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and the assailants are thought to remain at large.
“I know that in our society, the society of Israel, there is no place for such murderers,” Netanyahu said. “And that’s the difference between us and our neighbors. They consider murderers to be heroes.”
Palestinians counter that Israelis attack Arabs with impunity and that Israeli authorities do not do nearly enough to combat hate crimes or rein in security forces.
Hussein Abu Khieder, Mohammad’s father, said Sunday that he thought Israel had acted against his son’s alleged killers only because of international pressure.
Regardless of the reason, he said, he welcomed the arrests and expressed hope that they represent a broader change in Israeli attitudes toward crimes against Palestinians. “It is not like it used to be,” he said. “They can’t get away with it anymore.”
Authorities did not release the names of those arrested Sunday, citing a legal order that bars them from commenting publicly on certain details of the investigation.
Khieder was abducted as he waited outside amosque for dawn prayers. By the time his body was found later that morning, 90 percent of it was covered in burns.
Eran Schwartz, a spokesman for the legal aid organization Honenu, said the six suspects ranged in age from 16 to 25 and came from Jerusalem neighborhoods as well as West Bank settlements.