USraeli settler questioned over terror attacks

Yaakov Teitel 'deeply involved in terrorism in all different levels', police spokesman says

Israeli security services were today re-questioning an American-Israeli settler who they say has confessed to attacks including the killing of two Palestinians and wounding a professor with a pipe bomb.

Yaakov "Jack" Teitel, an American who emigrated to Israel a decade ago, was arrested by police and undercover agents for Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency, as he handed out leaflets condemning homosexuals last month.

Police said Teitel has a hardline rightwing ideology based on hatred of Palestinians, leftwingers, homosexuals and even the Israeli police.

"He is a determined man with very deeply-rooted ideology," Eki Makmel, the deputy commander of an Israeli police Swat team, was quoted as saying.

Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, described Teitel as a "Jewish terrorist", adding: "He was deeply involved in terrorism in all different levels."

It is rare for Israeli police to make such an arrest, even though human rights groups have documented repeated incidents of settler violence against Palestinians.

Israeli press reports said 37-year-old Teitel had been arrested on suspicion of murder in 2000, but later released.

His recent arrest came after a long investigation by Shin Bet, particularly its Division for Countering State Subversion, also known as the "Jewish Division".

Teitel, the son of a US Marine Corps dentist, was born in Florida and raised on military bases. He is married with four children.

He visited Israel many times as a tourist before emigrating and taking citizenship in 2000, going to live in Shvut Rachel, an ideological rightwing Jewish settlement on the occupied West Bank south of the Palestinian city of Nablus.

Police said two Palestinians, a shepherd and a taxi driver, were among his victims, killed more than a decade ago when he was in Israel as a tourist.

He also confessed to planting a pipe bomb at the Jerusalem home of Professor Zeev Sternhell, an eminent academic and long-time critic of Israel's settlements in the West Bank, last year. Sternhell suffered a leg injury.

Posters then appeared in his neighbourhood offering a reward for anyone who murdered a member of Peace Now, an Israeli group that has campaigned against the occupation for many years.

"Had the executor of the terror attack not been caught, I think Israeli society, at the end of things, would have paid the price," Sternhell said. "I hope this system will treat him, this terrorist, as it treats any terrorist, Jewish or Arab."

Teitel is also accused of sending a gift basket, boobytrapped with a bomb, to a family of American messianic Jews in Israel in March last year.

The basket exploded, seriously injuring the family's son, Ami Ortiz, who was 15 at the time. He lost two toes and suffered damaged hearing.

The community of messianic Jews believe Jesus is the Messiah, but also consider themselves Jewish.

Weapons were found at Teitel's home, but police said they believed he acted alone.

Teitel's lawyer, Adi Keidar, said his client "in the best-case scenario is mentally unstable". He described him as "a man that is motivated by false thoughts, that see himself as an emissary of the lord".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/02/yaakov-teitel-israel-settler

Jewish extremist held for hate crimes

sraelis targeted by a suspected extremist Jewish settler called for harsh penalties if the man, accused of a series of murders and attempted murders, is found guilty.

Police yesterday lifted a gagging order on last month's arrest of US-born Yaakov "Jack" Teitel, 37, suspected of murdering two Palestinians. He is also facing charges of rigging a booby-trapped gift basket sent to a family of messianic Jews which left a 15 year old boy badly injured, and of attempting to kill the Israeli academic and peace activist Zeev Sternhell with a pipe bomb.

Police said that they found rifles, handguns and explosives at the home of the suspect in the illegal West Bank outpost of Shvut Rachel. He was arrested after posting signs praising an attack on a Tel Aviv gay club which left two dead.

Police indicated that Florida-born Mr Teitel had confessed to shooting dead a Palestinian, Issa Machmara, in Hebron in 1997. He reportedly told police he had come from the US to Israel specifically to attack Palestinians. Professor Sternhell said "Jewish terrorists" should be treated no more leniently than Palestinians.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/jewish-extremist-held-for-hate-crimes-1813192.html