Jewish Extremists Divide Israel's Right Wing Even as Orthodox Take Reins of Security Services
January 4, 2016
In a uniquely Israeli bit of irony, the VIP protection unit of Israel’s Shin Bet security service has beefed up protection — for the director of the Shin Bet, Yoram Cohen.
The reason, according to Israel’s Channel 10 television news, is growing agitation against the Shin Bet and its director by pro-settler radicals. Intense anger has erupted among activists on the far right, leading to at least one major demonstration and several minor ones, over rumored mistreatment of Jewish terror suspects during Shin Bet interrogation.
The protests follow the arrests of a half-dozen suspected Jewish extremists in early December as suspects in the July 31 firebombing of a home in the West Bank Palestinian village of Duma. An 18-month-old child was killed in the attack, and the child’s mother and father later died of their wounds. The suspects were reportedly held under rules usually reserved for Palestinian terrorists, prevented from seeing lawyers for 18 days, deprived of sleep and subjected to harsh Shin Bet interrogation.
But that’s not the ironic part. The fact is, it was only because of pressure from the settler movement that Cohen was chosen to head the Shin Bet in the first place. An Orthodox Jew identified with the political right, Cohen — the colorless chief of the Shin Bet headquarters staff — had been slated to retire in May 2011 as the baton was passed to the agency’s then-deputy director, Yitzhak Ilan. But Ilan was vetoed at the last minute by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Cohen was appointed instead. The reason reportedly was Ilan’s earlier service heading the agency’s so-called Jewish division, the unit in charge of tracking Jewish terrorists and extremists. That made him anathema to the settler movement.
Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/israel/328326/radicals-threaten-the-head-of-israeli-secret-service/#ixzz3wHswBHYr