- Title: MIDEAST-ISRAEL/LEHAVA Anti-Arab group poses legal, political dilemma for Israel
- Date: 28th December 2014
- Summary: RISHON LETZION, ISRAEL (FILE-AUGUST 17, 2014) (REUTERS) FAR-RIGHT PROTESTERS DEMONSTRATING AGAINST MANSOUR AND MALKA'S WEDDING, WAVING ISRAELI FLAGS AND CHANTING SLOGANS VARIOUS OF MEN WEARING LEHAVA T-SHIRT CHANTING AND WAVING FLAGS ISRAELI FLAGS FLYING (NIGHT SHOTS) VARIOUS OF POLICE PUSHING FAR-RIGHT PROTESTERS POLICE ARRESTING PROTESTER AND TAKING HIM AWAY
- Embargoed: 12th January 2015 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Israel
- Country: Israel
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA3DXWQJ2A2RFGHWDT19PN5HCRM
- Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS VIDEO WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
A far-right Israeli group that agitates against Arabs in the name of religion and national security is forcing the Jewish state into a legal and political balancing act as it tries to contain sectarian violence.
Among their activities, Lehava activists yelling "Death to the Arabs" picketed the wedding in August of a Muslim to a Jewish woman who converted to Islam. Now three members have been charged with an arson attack on a cross-faith school in Jerusalem last month.
Communal tension has been rising following last summer's Gaza war, in which more than 2,000 Palestinians died, and feuding over access to Jerusalem's holiest site. This has spilled over into Palestinian street attacks on Jews, including the killing of four rabbis and a Druze policeman at a synagogue.
Illustrating the risk of sectarian violence, a Palestinian youth was burned to death in July by Israeli assailants in alleged revenge for the killing of three Jewish teens by militants in the West Bank.
The authorities are under pressure to deal with anyone encouraging Jewish retaliation against Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. Efforts to tackle Lehava, however, may be complicated by guarantees of free speech and sympathy for the group among a minority of Israelis.
Lehava, whose name means "flame" but is also a Hebrew acronym for "Preventing Assimilation in the Holy Land", denies wrongdoing and says it is the target of a political witch-hunt.
Police rounded up 21 Lehava members, including its leader Benzion Gopshtein, after the attack on the school where Jewish and Arab children study together. The raids suggest a crackdown on Lehava, and maybe a ban, is in the works.
The three men charged with the arson attack have yet to enter a plea. Gopshtein has tried to distance himself from them, arguing he is being targeted for what he says, not what he does.
"I'm suspected in giving interviews to media. During investigation, they showed me interviews in which I spoke. I think that one of the basic things of a democratic culture is that one can speak his mind on television, even if it's sometimes painful or bothering people. I did not incite for violence. I said the truth and for that I was investigated," he told Reuters after being released from police custody.
While declining to condemn the school arson attack in the interview, he said he never advocated violence.
"They didn't do it as members of Lehava. They are members of Lehava that did many other things, obviously without our knowledge. We do not support these kind of things," he added.
Gopshtein, who put the number of Lehava members at 5,000, said the authorities were bothered by the broad support, and therefore carried out arrests.
An Israeli official described the Lehava arrests as part of a drive to stamp out hate speech. Among those facing charges are eight Palestinians from East Jerusalem accused of encouraging attacks on Israelis over social media. But the official said securing convictions against Lehava activists on possible charges of inciting racist attacks would be harder.
"Their public statements have been less unequivocal," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It is a complex matter, especially as we do not want to intrude on legal rights to freedom of expression."
Incitement to violence on racial or religious grounds carries a 5-year prison sentence in Israel, 20 percent of whose citizens are Arabs. When felonies are committed as a result of such incitement, hate-crime legislation empowers judges to double the standard penalties.
Lehava's core cause is discouraging romances between Jews and gentiles, saying it is campaigning to preserve Judaism.
While such relationships are rare in Israel, the group has disseminated names and pictures of Arabs suspected of courting Jewish women, and critics accuse it of using vigilantes to threaten the men with violence.
Lehava has also urged Israeli businesses not to employ Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, branding them as "tomorrow's terrorists".
Gopshtein was a disciple of the late Meir Kahane, a U.S.-born rabbi who advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian territories. Gopshtein, 45, said he had previously had run-ins with the police for disorderly conduct while active with Kahane's movement Kach, which was banned from Israeli politics as racist in 1988.
Asked whether Lehava might similarly be outlawed, the Israeli official said that the possibility will be examined.
Mainstream Israeli leaders have condemned the arson attack and other racist incidents. The arrests were led by a police taskforce set up last year to tackle violent far-right Jews.
An Israel Democracy Institute poll to be published next month found that 21 percent of Israeli Jews identify themselves as "religious nationalists", the institute said, while about three percent hold "hard-core" views against gentiles. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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