Settler admits to murder, series of bomb attacks
Yaakov Teitel suspected of killing 2 Palestinians, attemping to kill Messianic Jew, leftist professor.
By Amos Harel Tags: Israel news Jewish terroristA resident of the West Bank settlement outpost Shvut Rachel was arrested last month for suspected murder and for his alleged role in a string of attempted murder plots, according to details of an investigation revealed on Sunday after a gag order on the case was lifted.
Yaakov "Jack" Teitel, 37, is suspected of killing two Palestinians, for rigging the package bomb which left the child of a Messianic Jew seriously wounded, for attempting to kill left-wing professor Ze'ev Sternhell, and for his alleged role in a series of warning attacks against Israel Police at the time of the Gay Pride Parades.
According to the Shin Bet and Israel Police, Teitel has confessed to most of the allegations against him.
The footage below shows a man believed to be Teitel rigging a bomb package sent to the Ortiz family, Messianic Jews living in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.
Teitel, a resident of the northern West Bank outpost, was born in Florida and has moved back and forth between the United States and Israel over the last two decades. In 2000, he returned to Israel to live permanently.
During a search of his home, police discovered rifles, handguns and explosive materials; they were unable, however, to find the gun which he allegedly used to kill the Palestinians.
He even apparently claimed during his investigation to involvement in the attack on a gay-lesbian youth club in Tel Aviv, in which two people were killed. The Shin Bet has said, however, that there is not sufficient evidence at this point to tie him to that attack.
Teitel was arrested on October 7 in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Har Nof, in Jerusalem, after posting signs around town praising the attack on the Tel Aviv gay club.
His posters were signed with the name 'Shleisel,' referring to the ultra-Orthodox man who stabbed and wounded a number of marchers during the Jerusalem pride parade a couple of years ago.
Police also found posters in his neighbourhood offering a one million shekel reward to anyone killing a member of Israel's Peace Now movement, that opposes West Bank settlement activity.
Teitel was arrested after a prolonged police follow-up; he was in possession of a loaded gun at the time of the arrest. He was interrogated without right to a lawyer. Deliberations over his arrest were held at a number of courts, even reaching the High Court of Justice.
During his investigation, Teitel repeatedly said that he had acted of his own accord and that nobody else was involved in his alleged crimes.
His wife, Rivka, was brought in for questioning for a few hours a little over a week ago. She reserved her right to silence. Police have said that they do not have sufficient evidence to believe that she had known of his plans, even though the majority of his weapons were discovered at their house and in the adjacent yard.
According to a senior Shin Bet source, Teitel was an "autodidact" who taught himself to use weapons and rig explosives, apparently on the Internet.
Teitel has confessed to murdering a Palestinian shepherd near Mount Hebron in 1997 and to killing an Arab taxi driver in East Jerusalem some two months later. He said that he came to Israel precisely to carry out attacks against Palestinians as revenge for suicide bombings.
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West Bank settler Yaakov Teitel |
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when opinion polls showed them far less popular than fateh? it wasn't by popular vote(which is why NO ONE saw it coming), it was by excellent political strategy. but even then, your reasoning is wrong, and can just as easily be used by palestinians to justify the killing of israeli citizens; right? and i'm sure there are those who DO; just like you. but i suppose i could have made it more clear in my post that it was in reference to the settlers...as the "group" to which i understood the poster was refering. i was NOT refering to israelis.
then became prime minister of Israel.
I are delighted that an arrest has finally been made in the Ariel messianic Jewish case. Praise G-d. But the police have had cct footage for 19 months. Why the delay? There seems to be a consistent bias in the Police service against Messianic Jews. Yet they are good citizens, serve in the army, pay their taxes unlike some elements of the Ultra Ortodox community. Hopefully the persecution that some Messianic Jewish communities receive at the hands of the Ultra Ortodox will now abate.
By the standard of the 2009 Gaza war, Palestinians now have a pretext to go slaughtering a thousand innocent Israeli civilians to fight the cause of "stopping Settler terror." To the Israelis, those in glass houses shouldn't throw "smart" bombs at apartments with an oversized firework launcher on the roof, and Gazan sewage plants.
why not kill the scum that infects the world?
Read up on Yoram Skolnick who shot a *terrorist* who had *just killed his friend.* He was paroled early after 7.5 years. This guy... not likely to be on the streets any time soon.
I don't condone murder. Put him in a cell next to Bagrhrouti and wait to see who dies of old age in prison first.
IDF has the habit of demolishing the houses of terrorists, if they do not do the same with this guy then IDF is obviously racist, they have to demolish his house.
Please tell me since when is DAMASCUS is an Israel Occupied Territory? I must have been away on EXODUS, WHEN Damascus fell.
wait for the very near future , youw will see what will happen in our dear country.
Palestinians voted for Hamas political platform of terror against Israel, refusal to make peace, refusal to recognize that Israel exists. Their ultimate goal is to free all of Israel, not only Gaza and the West Bank. Israelis voted for their government to protect them as any government should as their borders & cities are under constant threat. Isralis did not vote for this guy to do what he did; this guy can try to justify his crimes for whatever reasons, he is still in the wrong and should pay for his crimes.
Have you no shame?
"Released with a pat on the head after a week"! Are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is??I am. Well??
demolished for terror. The last 2 Jewish terrorists were lynched by Arabs.Do you want equal treatement?
The media has convicted a Jewish man of murder, based on representations made by the secret police, who took away a man, and interrogated him, subjecting him to psychological pressure, probable physical coercion if not torture, and sleep deprivation for weeks on end. He was not allowed to speak with a lawyer. Finally, he signed whatever papers were put in front of him. He even implicated himself in crimes he could not have committed. Meanwhile, no one in the media bothers to clarify any of this or state that these are merely allegations. I have no idea if this fellow did any or all of what is alleged, but I do know that the government has an interest in pinning as many crimes as it can on a single 'settler.'
Dear Sheikh, I got one name for you: Mehachem Begin. :)
welcome three Israeli terrorists from Kiryat Arba after serving 7 years of a life sentence. They planted bombs designed to maim West Bank Mayors. Presented below is an excerpt from a newspaper. On June 2, 1980, the Livni cell planted bombs in the cars of Nablus Mayor Bassani Shaka'a, who lost both of his legs, and Ramallah Mayor Karim Khalaf, who lost half his foot. They also put a bomb on the garage door of elBireh Mayor Ibrahim Tawil, which blinded an Israeli soldier who tried to defuse the explosive. The terrorists claimed later that their aim in attacking the mayors was "not to kill them; killed they would become martyrs, while wounded they would serve as a living ongoing deterrent. " A TNT bomb exploded that same day in a crowded Hebron market injuring 11 Palestinians, including four children.
Always trying to get the best of a deal, aren't you? But I doubt Hamas wants him. He's your problem.
That must surely be the outcome of this, correct? You know, the D9 bulldozers will be powered up and his house will come a' tumblin' down. Correct?
"right so killing kids is ok if you "feel"...oppressed?" Remember how many Palestinian kids died during Operation Cast Lead....
People like Teitel are part of a large movement of extremists that has been at best ignored by the Israeli authorities and at worst actively encouraged and enabled. There needs to be a thorough investigation of this case and proper steps taken to ensure that similarly minded extremists hell-bent on violence are stopped in their tracks.
you can't compare equally what the pals do as to what a zionist does.
because israel blames ( and the gaza war is proof) pals that fire rockets on all the pals, so lets blame him and all fanatical zionists, and this is NOT an isolated incident. fair is fair?.
as if he is that bad really...he killed a few people...what has Israel done, how many thousands of children has the government of Israel killed? Focusing on him in light of that is just to me ridiculous.
He cannot have been acting alone
In a week when he is released with a pat on the head, we are all supposed to forget this story.
you are 100 % correct but that doesnt work in liberal media who sell more papers blaming Israel
not to mention murder and self defeating behaviour. Another own goal that will alienate most and leave them with ever fewer fringe supporters.
terrorist actvities then.?Because only non citizens have their houses demolished for terror. Nothing to do with being Jewish.! Then again if you are desperate enough to score points and do not have material you have to invent. Like claiming Liberman said he wanted to drop an atomic bomb on Gaza. If your cause cannot stand on factual content there is something very wrong with your cause.
Israelis seem to have no problem electing murderers or swindlers to positions of Power in Israel.
clearly this Teitel fellow is mentally ill - i seriously doubt he committed all the crimes he claims to have committed, but in any case, he should be locked up, evaluated, drugged and given treatment for mental illness. like half the settlers, this one's so crazy it's hard to tell if he even knows what he's talking about.
OUSING FROM EVERY POST YOU WROTE SO FAR IN HAARETZ. wHAT MAKES YOU WRITE SUCH INFLAMATORY ANTI ISRAELI ACCUSATION WHEN ISRAELI AUTHORITIES ORDERED THE POLICE TO ARREST TAITEL iNFACT,ONE CONCLUSSION IS STANDING OUT. tEITEL WAS A DISTURBED INDIVDUAL WHO EXPRESSED HIS HATE AGAINST PEOPLE BY KILLING PALSTINIANS, PLANTING EXPLOSSIVES TO KILL A CHILD OF MESSIANIC JEW AND PLANNING TO KILL A LEFTIST ISRAELI PROFESSOR. yOU ARE THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SAME COIN.YOU ATTEMTING TO KILL ISRAEL WITH YOUR HATEFULL POSTS. YOU AND tEITEL ARE PART OF THE CRESCENT OF HATE.
He made the gun ownership mentality of the United States make Aliyah with him, not only his twisted fascism. May he get what he deserves, exemplarily.
That happens when people go away from GOD. Because our GOD of Israel is Love,Life,Joy,Peace,Hope,Forgiveness to tolerate and appreciate the diversity. we always have to remember nobody is better than nobody. ELOHIM loves us that we are, not by we have neither that people say.Because he sees our heart.Shalom :-)
Maybe he will become such for a certain group of the population, the same way arab suicide bombers will be considerd "shohada" or heros to their belonging group of people! All fanatics lack wisdom, understanding and tolerance. Their acts maybe giving them some sort of mental relief but wont change anything in the broad and long term and will only worsen things...Besides their actions do most likely lead to the killing of inocent souls!! How do they feel about that??!! Oooh i forgot they dont! There are gladly many other things to do in life...some of us need to get a life.
"all terrorists are the same" No they aren't. Some have their homes razed to take revenge on their families. And some get the benefit 'not guilty until proven' and have a psychiatric examination. Some are Arabs, some are Jews, and the same they are not under Jewish regime.
Israel blames all Gazans for the bottle rockets fired from there. And that culminated in Cast Lead and 400 dead kids. Rocketeers one and all.
One of the unfortunate lessons we learned from WWII is that the definition of military target has changed. Unless you are willing to charge the Allied leaders who deliberately targeted Japanese and German civilians (and killed a few hundred thousand) and any remaining air crews who are still alive with terrorism, your statement is strangely inconsistent (a polite way of saying sheer hypocrisy).
Anyone for figuring out the root causes of terrorism? May he get improsened for life and only released when Hamas terrorists are released.
when ALL palestinians are blamed for hamas, and suffer a harsh price for it; why not?
Of course, it must be punished by law, but he was only giving back what has been coming to Jews by Arabs for decades.
Aiming at military targets isn't terrorism. Anything else is.
Condemning will not return the dead people Practical measures need be to implemented to compensate the affected families.
oppressed? Any acts of violence is wrong... no matter how hard to attempt to spin the facts...
he would be freed after several years with 1000 other colleagues in Hamas exchange. This murderer will well deserved rotten in jail
This is the type of guy that we don't need. He probably would have started something awful for some delusional reason. Something that Jews don't need right now. We need to get along with other people. We need to find the rational good people on the Arab side and strengthen them. We have our own extremists. They can't be allowed to become Bad Rambos and destroy everything the good rational people on our side have accomplished. Good job Israel. Keep up the good work!
I agree with you 100%. Terrorism is unacceptable irrespective of where it comes from. Israel must by example deal with her own terrorists if Israel is to demand that the Arabs deal with theirs.
terrorism, by definition, is the deliberate murder of civilans for political reasons. if this man is guilty as he seems to be, he must be condemned to life in prison. there can be no tolerance whatever for terror anywhere in the world. there is never any excuse for terror anywhere in the world. civilised people must stand against terrorism regardless of where it occurs.
A terrorist is a terrorist. Or... does the seriousness of their crimes depending of their religion?
he must pay for his crimes against palestinians and gays
This man is a terrorist and deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life. There's never a reason to kill an innocent person, I hope the families of the murdered Palestinians can now have some closure.
If the allegations are proven true, convict, and sentence. That's how democracies work, unlike the countries supported by the flood of Arabs, Arabists, and other libero-fascist loonies that are sure to post here.
sHAME ON HIM AND HE IS A JEW??????????
...What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I wonder how long the anti-semitic world would put up with this type of behavior from Jews, the way it perpetually does from Arabs/Muslims. My guess...about 2 minutes. And you know why? Because we expect this type of behavior from Arabs/Muslims. For them, its usual and customary. Despite the world's hatred of Jews, however, it (secretly) respects and admires us (Jews).
racists
Haartez STEADFASTLY REFUSES to ever use the "T" word when identifying Islamists. Yet, when a Jew commits the very same act, the "T" word quickly is brought to life by them.
Will they show that they are color blind and treat all equally?
This guy's a poster child for amending the Law of Return. Bernard Avishai is right.
I'm glad Israel captures and imprisons its terrorists. If this guy lived in Lebanon they'd televise his birthday celebration. My condolences to his victims' families.
Justice for all his victims, NOW!!!
Why is he a "Jewish terrorist"? Why not call him a "militant"? How come Arab terrorists are never "terrorists", but "militants"? And why a reference to his religion? When was the last time we heard "Islamic terrorists"? This is an example of how the media manipulates the public opinion. Shame. Let's be clear on one thing... THERE IS NO JEWISH TERRORISM. There may be individual Jewish terrorists, but Jewish terrorism does not exist as a phenomenon. You can't say that for Islamic terrorists though, given that there are Islam-based networks dedicated to the murder of innocent civilians.
and the death penalty should be the result. It is long past due for this punishment to be made mandatory!
for terrorism. I am confident that the usual cadre of Antisemites like the Swiss, Axel the German, Medel of running over his westernized daughter fame, and BBSNews will find ways to mitigate this equality of justice
Let's not blame entire groups for this guy, ok?