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Sep. 10th, 2007 02:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelleI find this so deeply disturbing and bewildering that I literally get dizzy. I'm horrified and dismayed, but sadly, not surprised. I cannot fathom their logic in living in Israel. But then, I did date someone who turned out to be a neo-Nazi himself.
At the very least, I've learned from the experience. Which is more, I think, than these men can say.
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1443562007
Mon 10 Sep 2007
Soviet Israelis held in neo-Nazi attack claims
BEN LYNFIELD IN JERUSALEM
EIGHT Israeli citizens have been accused of setting up the country's first neo-Nazi group and allegedly carrying out violent attacks on foreigners, religious Jews and homosexuals.
"It is difficult to believe Nazi ideology sympathisers can exist in Israel, but it is a fact," said Revital Almog, the police official who directed the investigation.
Eight men between the ages of 16 and 21, including the alleged leader of the group, Eli Boanitov, were arrested in recent months as a result of an investigation that began a year ago when a synagogue in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, was desecrated with swastikas, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said one suspect was abroad.
Mr Boanitov is suspected by police of choosing group members and propagating the ideology of Adolf Hitler through videos, music, graffiti and tattoos as well as organising meetings and violent attacks.
Covering his face with his shirt at a remand hearing in the town of Ramle, he told reporters: "There is no leader, there is no group, there is nothing."
In a state that has closely tied its own establishment and identity to the need to prevent another Nazi-style Holocaust, the revelations drew condemnation from across the political spectrum, including from Arab MPs.
Mr Rosenfeld said the suspects, all immigrants from the former Soviet Union, will be charged with causing grievous bodily harm and Holocaust denial.
Israel does not have a law that specifically targets anti-Jewish hate crimes because the possibility was never envisioned.
Mr Rosenfeld said that seven of the suspects were not Jewish according to the Orthodox religious definition of being born to a Jewish mother, but had qualified for citizenship under Israel's Law of Return, which grants Israeli nationality if one grandparent is Jewish.
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, urged Israelis not to "brand as criminals" all Russian immigrants.
"We as a society have failed in educating these youths," he said.
Computers seized from the suspects allegedly yielded videos of attacks police said were filmed by the group.
Mr Rosenfeld said it was believed the cell had carried out at least 15 attacks, including against Jews wearing skullcaps.
A typical film shows "six or seven neo-Nazis jumping on an Asian or foreign worker, stabbing and kicking him till he loses consciousness", he said.
Many of the attacks were carried out near the central bus station in Tel Aviv, an area frequented by migrant workers.
Police said that searches of suspects homes turned up Nazi uniforms, posters of Hitler, guns, knives and explosive materials.
In one video released by police, alleged neo-Nazis tell a Jewish drug addict to beg forgiveness from the Russian people for being a Jew and an addict and then beat him and a man who tried to come to his rescue. Police also said the group filmed itself giving the heil Hitler salute in front of the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv.
Elly Masterman, a lawyer for one of the suspects, said: "I have a deep suspicion that when the fog lifts, it will become clear that we have mistaken the shadows of mountains for mountains and that the police in its pursuit of the media has blown up this whole story."
The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organisation dedicated to combating anti-Semitism, praised the Israeli police for the arrests.
It said that until now the phenomenon of neo-Nazism in Israel had been "marginal" and a result of difficulties of absorbing immigrants into Israel rather than reflecting an organised movement.
"These youths are angry at Israel for holding them in contempt and lash out with hatred," it said in a statement.
LAW CHANGE CALL
MEIR Shetreet, the Israeli interior minister, yesterday called for a review of a fundamental piece of Israeli legislation - the Law of Return - in light of the discovery of an alleged neo-Nazi group made up of immigrants.
The current law sets out a broader definition of Jewishness than Jewish religious law does by specifying that not only those with a Jewish mother, but anyone with a Jewish father or grandparent and their spouses are eligible for automatic Israeli citizenship.
The broadening of the definition was justified in part on the fact that Nazi laws defined Jews as having a Jewish grandparent and that Israel - identifying itself as a haven from anti-Semitic persecution - should offer those people protection.
About a quarter of the 1.2 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union to move to Israel since 1991 do not consider themselves Jewish, according to government statistics.
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1443562007
Last updated: 09-Sep-07 00:36 BST
At the very least, I've learned from the experience. Which is more, I think, than these men can say.
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1443562007
Mon 10 Sep 2007
Soviet Israelis held in neo-Nazi attack claims
BEN LYNFIELD IN JERUSALEM
EIGHT Israeli citizens have been accused of setting up the country's first neo-Nazi group and allegedly carrying out violent attacks on foreigners, religious Jews and homosexuals.
"It is difficult to believe Nazi ideology sympathisers can exist in Israel, but it is a fact," said Revital Almog, the police official who directed the investigation.
Eight men between the ages of 16 and 21, including the alleged leader of the group, Eli Boanitov, were arrested in recent months as a result of an investigation that began a year ago when a synagogue in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, was desecrated with swastikas, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said one suspect was abroad.
Mr Boanitov is suspected by police of choosing group members and propagating the ideology of Adolf Hitler through videos, music, graffiti and tattoos as well as organising meetings and violent attacks.
Covering his face with his shirt at a remand hearing in the town of Ramle, he told reporters: "There is no leader, there is no group, there is nothing."
In a state that has closely tied its own establishment and identity to the need to prevent another Nazi-style Holocaust, the revelations drew condemnation from across the political spectrum, including from Arab MPs.
Mr Rosenfeld said the suspects, all immigrants from the former Soviet Union, will be charged with causing grievous bodily harm and Holocaust denial.
Israel does not have a law that specifically targets anti-Jewish hate crimes because the possibility was never envisioned.
Mr Rosenfeld said that seven of the suspects were not Jewish according to the Orthodox religious definition of being born to a Jewish mother, but had qualified for citizenship under Israel's Law of Return, which grants Israeli nationality if one grandparent is Jewish.
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, urged Israelis not to "brand as criminals" all Russian immigrants.
"We as a society have failed in educating these youths," he said.
Computers seized from the suspects allegedly yielded videos of attacks police said were filmed by the group.
Mr Rosenfeld said it was believed the cell had carried out at least 15 attacks, including against Jews wearing skullcaps.
A typical film shows "six or seven neo-Nazis jumping on an Asian or foreign worker, stabbing and kicking him till he loses consciousness", he said.
Many of the attacks were carried out near the central bus station in Tel Aviv, an area frequented by migrant workers.
Police said that searches of suspects homes turned up Nazi uniforms, posters of Hitler, guns, knives and explosive materials.
In one video released by police, alleged neo-Nazis tell a Jewish drug addict to beg forgiveness from the Russian people for being a Jew and an addict and then beat him and a man who tried to come to his rescue. Police also said the group filmed itself giving the heil Hitler salute in front of the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv.
Elly Masterman, a lawyer for one of the suspects, said: "I have a deep suspicion that when the fog lifts, it will become clear that we have mistaken the shadows of mountains for mountains and that the police in its pursuit of the media has blown up this whole story."
The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organisation dedicated to combating anti-Semitism, praised the Israeli police for the arrests.
It said that until now the phenomenon of neo-Nazism in Israel had been "marginal" and a result of difficulties of absorbing immigrants into Israel rather than reflecting an organised movement.
"These youths are angry at Israel for holding them in contempt and lash out with hatred," it said in a statement.
LAW CHANGE CALL
MEIR Shetreet, the Israeli interior minister, yesterday called for a review of a fundamental piece of Israeli legislation - the Law of Return - in light of the discovery of an alleged neo-Nazi group made up of immigrants.
The current law sets out a broader definition of Jewishness than Jewish religious law does by specifying that not only those with a Jewish mother, but anyone with a Jewish father or grandparent and their spouses are eligible for automatic Israeli citizenship.
The broadening of the definition was justified in part on the fact that Nazi laws defined Jews as having a Jewish grandparent and that Israel - identifying itself as a haven from anti-Semitic persecution - should offer those people protection.
About a quarter of the 1.2 million immigrants from the former Soviet Union to move to Israel since 1991 do not consider themselves Jewish, according to government statistics.
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1443562007
Last updated: 09-Sep-07 00:36 BST
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Date: 2007-09-10 11:22 am (UTC)