'A whole lot of Jews not bound by state laws'
Image of Netanyahu and Rivlin as Nazi officers from a video posted to YouTube by a man living in New York calling himself ‘Asheriko from Facebook’, ‘Oshri’ and ‘Natan Zoabi’ . Screenshot.
Shin Bet arrests Kahane’s grandson, online incitement continues
Far-right activist Meir Ettinger suspected of involvement with extremist Jewish organization; police opens investigation into videos of Netanyahu, Rivlin wearing Nazi uniform.
By Yoav Zitun, Itay Blumental, Ynet news
August 04, 2015
Far-right activist Meir Ettinger was arrested on Monday on suspicion of involvement with an extremist Jewish organization, while police opened an investigation into videos posted on YouTube of President Rivlin and Prime Minister Netanyahu in Nazi uniform.
Ettinger, who was barred from entering the West Bank or Jerusalem for a year, was arrested by the Judea and Samaria Police and transferred to the Shin Bet for questioning.
He is the grandson of far-right late US-born rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated expelling Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian territories.
In a blog he runs, Ettinger wrote on Thursday, a day before the terror attack in Duma in which a Palestinian baby was murdered, that “the truth must be told – there is no terror organization, but there are a whole lot of Jews, a lot more than people think, whose value-system is completely different than that of the High Court or the Shin Bet, and who are not bound by the laws of the state, but by much more eternal laws, true laws.”
Under the blog post titled “Terror organization,” he went on to say that “as part of the boastful statement by the Shin Bet about the organization it ‘exposed,’ things I wrote in this blog several weeks ago were quoted as things from ‘the head of the organization.’ To tell you the truth, I don’t know what they in the Shin Bet wanted me to organize, and they should definitely look for other people to cast for the roles they need in their show for the media, but this urge of the Shin Bet to create an atmosphere, to put up appearances as if there is some ‘organization’ it exposed, clearly illustrates to us what those in the Shin Bet understand and are so afraid of.”
Meir Ettinger in previous arrest. Archive photo by Ehud Amiton, Tazpit
Under a veil of secrecy, new cells of “hilltop youth” have been formed across the West Bank over the past few months. These groups seek to commit “price tag” attacks, which they say will inflame the situation in the Middle East, and bring redemption and the coming of the Messiah closer.
The “hilltop youth,” which the Shin Bet’s Jewish division nicknamed “happy Jews,” believe that exacting a price from the establishment will allow them to form a Jewish state based on Jewish moral values that appear in Jewish holy and literary sources.
The Israel Police has opened a criminal investigation against a man who calls himself “Asheriko from Facebook” who posted videos on YouTube that portray Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin in Nazi uniform and supposedly talking in German.
Meir Kahane
His Kach party was banned as a terrorist organisation in Israel in 1994, and then by the US, Canada and the EU. Kach and its offshoot Kahane Chai argue for all Arabs to be expelled from Israel.
The State Attorney’s Office authorized the investigation “on suspicion of insulting a public official.”
The video shows Rivlin in Gestapo uniform giving the Hitler salute and saying: “I am a bootlicking president and a self-hating hypocrite. When Jews are murdered, I don’t really care. I love licking Muslims’… I am a Jew-hating Nazi. Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!”
A caption at the end of the video declares: “Protest!!! Jewish blood is not cheap. Asheriko from Facebook.”
The man, who also calls himself Oshri, uploaded the videos from his home in New York, and admitted in a conversation with Ynet that he created them.
“No one told me I’m being investigated. There is no crime in this,” he said. “I made the videos and Rivlin’s photo with the kaffiyeh and Hamas’ logo.”
What are you? A Kahane supporter?
“No, I’m just a secular man who has had enough of Jewish blood being treated as cheap. There hasn’t been such a fuss when the Fogel family was slaughtered. Some Muslim was burned, probably a future terrorist, so there’s a big fuss, and our president accuses the entire Jewish nation of the crime. It doesn’t make sense. Where is the president when Jews are murdered every other day?”
Photoshopped image of President Rivlin as a Palestinian put on Facebook after he said, in February 2015, “Flames are spreading in our land, flames of violence, flames of hatred, flames of false, distorted and twisted beliefs. … We must put out the flames, the incitement, before they destroy us all.”
Last year, he admitted, he uploaded photos of Rivlin, then-justice minister Tzipi Livni, then-finance minister Yair Lapid and other Israeli officials in SS uniform, in protest of their objection to the nationality bill. He uploaded the photos under the name “Natan Zoabi” and accompanied them with the text: “The anti-Semites who oppose a Jewish state in the Land of Israel.”
Police also arrested Gilad Kleiner from Kiryat Malachi on Monday after he incited against the LGBT community on Facebook on Friday, and praised Yishai Shlissel, who is suspected of murdering 16-year-old Shira Banki during the Jerusalem Pride Parade.
Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday that “we intend on waging an uncompromising battle against Jewish terrorism. This is a fight for the state’s image, and we have no intention of giving up on this fight.”
He talked about the cabinet’s decision to allow administrative arrests for Jewish suspects. “This is a drastic measure we will use sparingly,” he vowed.
Tova Tzimuki, Roi Yanovsky and Ahiya Raved contributed to this report