31 July 2010
By
Jonathan Cook
The
arrest by Israel’s internal security service, the Shin
Bet, of an Israeli Jew accused of killing at least
four Palestinians has thrown a rare light on the
secret police, including attempts by one of its agents
to enlist the accused to assassinate a Palestinian
spiritual leader.
Chaim
Pearlman, who was arrested a fortnight
ago, has been charged with murdering four Palestinians
in
Jerusalem and
injuring at least seven others in a series of knife
attacks that began more than a decade ago. Police are
still investigating whether he was involved in
additional attacks.
Although Pearlman was denied access to a lawyer until
last Friday, far-right groups have rapidly come to his
aid, waging what the Shin Bet officials have described
as “psychological warfare” by revealing damaging
details about the case.
Pearlman has released tape recordings he secretly made
of recent conversations with an undercover Shin Bet
agent who tried to get Pearlman to incriminate
himself.
The
agent, who befriended Pearlman and was known as
“Dada”, can be heard exhorting him both to go to an
“Arab village” to “turn it into a fireworks display”
and to execute Sheikh
Raed Salah, a
leader of the Islamic Movement and a recent
participant in the aid flotilla to Gaza that was
attacked by Israel.
In
another blow to the Shin Bet, Pearlman’s supporters
have released a video secretly filmed of the head of
the Shin Bet’s Jewish division, which arrested
Pearlman, both naming him and identifying where he
lives.
Although he is in charge of handling “Jewish terror”
cases for the Shin Bet, the video states that he lives
in
Kfar Adumim, a
West Bank settlement. It is a criminal offence to
identify any employee of the Shin Bet.
Pearlman’s allies, who posted the video on overseas
websites so they could not be removed, appear to hope
that the Shin Bet will be intimidated by their move.
Identification of such a senior figure will prompt
fears that he may be in danger either of revenge
attacks or future prosecution in an international
tribunal.
The
Shin Bet have also been cornered into admitting that
they recruited Pearlman as an agent in 2000, in the
midst of his alleged stabbing spree, despite the fact
that he was a known member of Kach, an outlawed group
calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from “Greater
Israel”. He later chose to leave the
Shin Bet.
Abir
Baker, a lawyer with Adalah, a legal centre that
handles Palestinian security cases, said: “The Shin
Bet is facing an internal crisis over this arrest and
the settlers are trying to exploit that with their
campaign.
“Many
members of the Shin Bet are settlers themselves and
think of these extremists as their colleagues, not as
the enemy. The line between the Shin Bet and these
extremist organisations is very blurred.”
The
Shin Bet’s modus operandi in Pearlman’s case has been
exposed in part because, unusually, the judge
supervising the investigation partially revoked a gag
order immediately after the arrest.
Pearlman, who apparently suspected he was being
tracked by the Shin Bet, sent the recordings of his
conversations with Dada to local media to be broadcast
in the event of his detention.
Unlike
in the case of Palestinian attacks on Israelis,
attacks by Jews on Palestinians are rarely solved,
leading to criticisms that the Shin Bet is not serious
about tackling the problem of “Jewish terror”.
Amir
Oren, a security analyst for the liberal
Haaretz newspaper, accused the Shin Bet
of having “chains on its feet and weights around its
neck” when it investigated such cases.
Yaakov
Teitel, a settler who was arrested by the Shin Bet
last year, is accused of his first murder of a
Palestinian 14 years ago. Some observers have
suggested he was only arrested after he started
attacking leftwing Jews, including placing a bomb at
the home of a prominent academic in 2008.
Baker
said Jewish terrorists often found it easy to evade
the Shin Bet because they had learnt about the
organisation’s investigation techniques while working
as agents.
Although Pearlman, aged 30, was living in the Israeli
town of Yavne, north of Ashdod, at the time of his
arrest, he was raised on a settlement and spent many
years living in
Kfar Tapuach,
which is closely identified with the Kach movement.
Despite being illegal, Kach operates relatively openly
in the settlements and Pearlman’s connections to the
group may explain the well-organised campaign quickly
mounted in his defence.
Itamar
Ben Gvir, a parliamentary aide to Michael Ben Ari, an
MP who has maintained his ties to Kach, is reported to
be heading the media campaign against the Shin Bet.
Pearlman is also being helped by Honenu, a legal
organisation that defends Jews accused of attacking
Palestinians.
Anonymous Shin Bet officials told Channel 2 television
that the psychological warfare they were experiencing
from the far-right was “a completely different game”
from previous confrontations.
Nadia
Matar, leader of the pro-settler group Women in Green,
told the
Jerusalem Post
this week that the Shin Bet divisional head “has to
know that there is a price to stabbing Jewish brothers
in the back. … People have to be loyal or bear the
consequences.”
In the
20 hours of recordings with Dada, some of which have
been broadcast on Israeli television, the undercover
agent can be heard repeatedly inciting Pearlman to
kill Sheikh Salah.
Dada
says: “Why haven't soldiers killed Raed Salah, may he
die? … Someone should take care of him, send him to
the next world.”
He
then suggests Pearlman shoot at the sheikh’s car or
put a bomb under it. “That's the classic one.
Nothing’s left, everything goes everywhere,” he adds.
Dada’s
advice is particularly controversial given that at the
time Salah had recently stated that Israeli commandos
onboard the Mavi Marmara ship had tried to kill him.
Israeli officials too appeared to believe in the
immediate aftermath of the attack on the ship that
Salah had been killed or seriously injured. Early
reports in the
Israeli media
justified his presumed death on the grounds that he
had opened fire on the commandos. Later his wife was
called to a hospital to identify a man undergoing
surgery, although it turned out not to be the sheikh.
It
emerged last week that Pearlman may have been helped
by David Sitbon, a settler who is suspected of
stealing weapons from
Israeli army bases.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in
Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are
“Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq,
Iran and the
Plan to Remake the
Middle East”
(Pluto
Press) and “Disappearing Palestine:
Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books).
His website is
www.jkcook.net.
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