Former Security Chiefs Say Israel Doesn't Want to Stop Hate Crimes

Former Mossad head Shabtai Shavit says 'Israel is a lawful country that does not enforce its laws.'

May 3, 2014

Graffiti found on mosque in Fureidis: "Close mosques, not yeshivas" Credit: Haaretz

May 3, 2014

Israel is unable to solve the problem of anti-Arab hate crimes – known as "price tag" attacks – because it doesn't want to solve them, former Shin Bet head Carmi Gillon said on Saturday at a cultural event in Be'er Sheva.

"We don't see results, because we're not intended to see them," Gillon said, according to Nana website. "There's no such thing as 'can't do' in the Shin Bet, just 'don't want.'"

If the head of the Shin Bet decides that something will be dealt with, the results will be exactly as they were with the Jewish underground, Gillon said. "We treated them precisely like a terror organization."

He added that by working together the police and Shin Bet could arrest the hate crime perpetrators within a very short time, but there was no intention to catch them.

Speaking at the same event, former Mossad head Shabtai Shavit also crtiticized the government over the handling of the attacks, saying “Israel is a lawful country that does not enforce its laws.”

In another incident of violence on Saturday, 32 olive trees were destroyed near the settlement of Bat Ayin. Graffiti reading "Arabs are thieves" was found at the scene.

Additional attacks took place last week in the northern towns of Fureidis and Yokne’am, with a mosque vandalized and dozens of car tires slashed.

Jewish violence on Arabs was criticized in a U.S. State Department terrorism report released on Wednesday, which said that Israel had not effectively countered and prosecuted radical settlers implicated in “price tag” attacks.

“Attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian residents, property, and places of worship in the West Bank continued and were largely unprosecuted according to UN and NGO sources,” the report said.

Gillon warned that the anti-Arab phenomenon could expand and lead to the assassination of another Israeli prime minister. Gillon was head of the Shin Bet when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.