Jewish terrorism: Like father, like son
Yehiel Indore who is suspected of killing 19-year-old Palestinian Qosai Jammal Mi’tan in the West Bank village of Burqa arrives for a hearing at the Jerusalem District Court, 15 August 2023
Sebastian Ben Daniel writes in +972:
Not long after a Jewish settler allegedly shot and killed a 19-year-old Palestinian man, Qosai Jammal Mi’tan, in the West Bank village of Burqa earlier this month, a prominent right-wing journalist from the Kan public broadcaster, Akiva Novick, came to the main suspect’s defense. “I don’t know what exactly happened near Oz Zion on Shabbat, but I personally know the Jewish man who was seriously wounded in the incident,” Novick tweeted about Yehiel Indore. “He is very far from looking for confrontations and friction. I would not rush to draw conclusions here.” The same narrative could be found throughout the right-wing press.
Although we don’t know exactly how and why Novick is seemingly so well-acquainted with Indore, it turns out that they are both the sons of members of the Jewish Underground, an infamous Jewish terrorist group involved in several notorious attacks on and plots against Palestinians, including a plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock, in the 1980s. Specifically, both men’s fathers — Yossi Indore, who is now an electrician in the settlement of Ofra; and Yitzhak Novick, who continued years later to serve as a reservist in the Israeli army — were suspected of being part of a Jewish Underground cell that, in 1980, planted several bombs targeting Palestinian mayors in the West Bank.
One bomb exploded in the car of Ramallah Mayor Karim Khalaf, who lost his right foot in the attack; another was planted in Nablus Mayor Bassam Shaka’a’s car, which caused him to lose both legs; and one exploded outside the garage of Al-Bireh Mayor Ibrahim Tawil. Although Tawil was unharmed by the attack, an Israeli police bomb sapper was blinded while trying to defuse the bomb.
Whereas Yitzhak Novick was arrested in 1984 when Israel’s intelligence services rounded up the group’s members — as was Hagai Segal, who also took part in the bombings, and who is now a prominent right-wing journalist along with his son, Amit — Yossi Indore managed to evade the authorities with fellow Underground member Ira Rappaport, the former emissary of the settler organization Amana, which is run today by another former Underground member, Ze’ev Hever.