Shin Bet stops quiz-master in Tel Aviv for 'unusual behavior'

Security guards from Shin Bet security service headquarters in Tel Aviv detain people walking in the area, even hundreds of meters from the building. Yesterday guards detained author and riddle writer Dan Hamitzer for an extended period of time.

Hamitzer, 63 and a pilot in the Israel Air Force reserves, was in the area to give a lecture on a children's book he had recently published. Apparently he aroused the suspicion of the guards when he passed the headquarters.

According to Hamitzer, at 8:45 A.M. a man approached and identified himself only as "security."

"A man came up from behind me, panting, and asked me to stop and identify myself," Hamitzer said. "I gave him my driver's license and he asked if I'm the Hamitzer who does the riddles. But when I started to move on he said, 'I didn't release you,' and told me to wait while he checked something," Hamitzer related.

Hamitzer said he insisted on leaving but the guard stood in front of him and blocked his progress, summoning a colleague who came by car.

"You realize that he could have arrested you," Hamitzer said the second man told him. The two guards prevented Hamitzer from leaving for several minutes, as a crowd gathered and cars stopped.

"I asked them if they were from the Shin Bet or the Mossad espionage agency, because I remembered that there is some kind of building like that nearby, but all they were willing to say was that it was 'OK' because they're from the Prime Minister's Office, which was also on the identity tags they showed me. The tag of one of them didn't even have a name, just the letter Ayin." Eventually they let him go.

"It was a total farce," Hamitzer said. "I am balding, with gray hair, and lately I don't look Middle Eastern. We just stood there, with people gathering around and talking to me." At no point did the guards tell him why they had detained him.

The Shin Bet issued the following statement in response: "An examination of the incident revealed that the unusual behavior of the individual close to the secured security facility aroused the suspicions of the security guards at the site. One of them approached the individual, identified himself and asked him to identify himself."

Quoting Article 3.2 of the Law on Security Public Areas of 1998, the Shin Bet said the security guard carried out his duty, and claimed that "had the man bothered to cooperate from the start all the unpleasantness would have been avoided for both of them."