Hilltop Youth

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T-shirts with the words “Price Tag”. The skull with sidelocks and kippah as well as crossed swords was also displayed on (black) flags in Baladim
Lettering "Long live the King Messiah!" On a house wall in Duma, July 31, 2015
Demonstration in Tel Aviv, August 1st, 2015, Meretz poster: “Terror shield. This is not a youth movement and these are not pranks. "

As Hilltop Youth , " Hilltop Youth " ( Hebrew נוער הגבעות Noar haGvaot ), are militant youths from the Israeli settler movement .

Name and self-image

For strategic reasons, Israeli settlements in the West Bank are being built on hilltops. The Hilltop Youth themselves often grew up in such settlements, on the other hand they spontaneously and illegally "colonize" hills in the vicinity of their place of residence in their free time. Shimi Friedman describes how ten young people built the so-called “flag outpost” overnight, which they knew very well that the border police would tear down the next day. Its only purpose was to "be there".

The phenomenon has been observed since the beginning of the Second Intifada in autumn 2000: all over the West Bank, religious youths moved out with tents and sleeping bags to cultivate their private piece of land on hilltops. They got into conflict with the Palestinians in neighboring villages, uprooted their trees or shot into the air as soon as a villager approached them. By 2003 around 70 such outposts were known. The picturesque appearance of the residents and their alternative lifestyle initially earned them some sympathy in public.

That changed when hate crimes against Palestinians became known, so that in October 2017 some activists campaigned for support in Israeli society with a video message. In it they represented their love for the Land of Israel , which is expressed in a hard life, in house building and in the cultivation of the soil. Carlo Aldrovandi also attributed an ascetic and communitarian lifestyle, isolated in illegal camps on hills in the West Bank, to the Hilltop Youth, who were modeled on the Biblical Hebrews .

The Outpost Baladim near the West Bank settlement of Kochav Haschachar , in which a few dozen young men temporarily camped, was, according to the Schin Bet, a center of the Hilltop Youth. From this base they launched attacks on Palestinians, left-wing Israelis and soldiers. The illegal small settlement was cleared in the summer of 2017.

activities

The violence has escalated since around 2010; it began with the felling of Palestinian olive trees, stones thrown at Palestinian cars and disruptions against Arab farmers while they were working in the fields.

The actions are agreed at short notice and are a reaction to a statement by a well-known politician, a terrorist attack or the evacuation of an illegal settlement. This type of retaliation is also known as a “price tag” attack, in which acts of vandalism force the Israeli state to pay a price for political action. The destination is usually within walking distance, or a vehicle is organized. Since the action takes place at night, clashes with the Israeli army or the local police are not to be expected: "It seems as if the security forces are blind to what is going on right in front of their noses."

According to an assessment by Israeli investigative authorities on July 29, 2015, there was a radicalized group within the Hilltop Youth that had been planning the overthrow of the Israeli government since 2013 and wanted to bring about "salvation" through various actions. The head of this group was released from custody under certain conditions and lives in Safed .

  • The activities of this group were initially directed against Christian goals; The Catholic monastery Deir Rafat was devastated in April 2014.
  • In May 2014, an attempt was made to cancel Pope Benedict XVI 's visit to Israel . to disturb what the authorities prevented.
  • In November 2014 a series of arson attacks began against Palestinian houses, for example in Khirbet Abu Fellah and in A-Dirat.
  • In February 2015 there was an attack against a Christian target, the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem.
  • The arson in the Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha on the night of June 18, 2015 attracted international attention . The Rabbis for Human Rights group told Reuters that since 2009, 43 hate crimes against churches, monasteries and mosques have been counted.
  • On the night of July 30-31, 2015, the Palestinian Dawabsheh family (father, mother and a toddler) were killed in an arson attack on their home in Duma; only the five-year-old son survived with severe burns. Another house was also set on fire, but the family of seven happened to be away that night. The events in Duma were the climax and turning point of the development, because with tough crackdown the investigative authorities succeeded in arresting the militant core of the Hilltop Youth and smashing the network.

religion

According to Shimi Friedman, around two thirds of young people vaguely describe themselves as religious, even though they follow few religious rules in everyday life. They do not recognize a particular rabbi or spiritual leader as an authority. On the other hand, they follow on the Internet how the religious authorities react to their actions and from which side they receive confirmation.

Both the settler movement and the Israeli media assume that Rabbis Yitzchak Ginzburg and Elieser Melamed prepared the phenomenon of the Hilltop Youth with anti-Palestinian publications. But there are signs that the criminals from the ranks of the Hilltop Youth, who wear a crocheted kippah and sidelocks , are rebelling against the rabbis as well as against the State of Israel. Nicodemus Schnabel coined the phrase “hooligans of religion” for the use of traditional religious attributes by non-religious violent criminals.

actors

First generation

Some activists have been sentenced to prison terms and fines by Israeli courts; others were acquitted for lack of evidence. The Schin Bet was confident that it had disbanded the first-generation Hilltop Youth network through a series of arrests and conditional releases.

Meir Ettinger

The central figure of the Hilltop Youth is Meir Ettinger (* 1991), a grandson of Meir Kahane and a graduate of the Od-Yosef-Chai-Jeschiwa. He is credited with a widely divided text in 2015, which among other things calls for the overthrow of a government that is standing in the way of the rebuilding of the temple and true and complete salvation.

Ettinger was arrested as the prime suspect after a wave of attacks on Palestinians and other non-Jews in 2015. After ten months of pre-trial detention, he was conditionally released in June 2016 without charge. The Schin Bet decided not to extend the pre-trial detention, but arranged for Ettinger to be banned from entering Jerusalem and the West Bank "because of the danger that he currently poses", to report daily and to obey a series of contact bans. In November 2017, a court in Petach Tikwa convicted Ettinger, along with two other activists, of a stone throwing attack on Palestinian civilians in the village of Burin, which had already taken place in 2014.

Moshe Orbach

A court in Rehovot sentenced Moshe Orbach (* 1991) from Bnei Brak in March 2016 to two and a half years in prison, of which six months were suspended. Orbach had written and circulated a manifesto entitled “Kingdom of Evil”. In it he called for violence and terror against non-Jews in Israel and the West Bank and explained in detail how Palestinian houses could be set on fire and residents prevented from fleeing. The aim is to inflict the most serious damage possible on the victims. A copy of the manifesto was found during the investigation into the attack in Tabgha.

Orbach was no stranger to the Schin Bet. Together with Yinon Reuveni, he was part of a cell that had carried out several hate crimes since 2014. In April 2014, they ravaged Deir Rafat Monastery. At the end of the year they carried out arson attacks on Palestinian houses, but turned back to Christian sites as targets in 2015.

Yinon Reuveni

In December 2017, Yinon Reuveni (* 1995) was sentenced to six years in prison by the Nazareth District Court for the arson in Tabgha (the two and a half years in custody were counted towards this); two years were suspended. In addition, he should pay 50,000 NIS (12,500 euros) in damages. Reuveni's lawyer appealed against it; On August 16, 2018, the Supreme Court increased the sentence for Reuveni by an additional 18 months in prison, since it saw the attack on a holy site as an ideologically motivated crime.

Reuveni lived in the illegal small settlement of Baladim, which the Shin Bet observed. Even before the attack in Tabgha, Reuveni had been investigated for attempted arson in the Dormition Church in Jerusalem (February 2015).

Amiram Ben Uliel

Several months after the Duma murders, investigative authorities achieved a breakthrough that led to the arrest of Amiram Ben Uliel and a minor on December 1, 2015. After the two remained silent during the interrogation, the Shin Bet used special interrogation methods ("necessary interrogations"), which were justified by the fact that further attacks could be imminent. Under such pressure, Ben Uliel confessed; the minor admitted to various hate crimes and his involvement in the Duma attack, and then attempted suicide. When details of these interrogation methods - which are common among Palestinian remand prisoners - became known, activists from the Israeli right-wing scene demonstrated.

Amiram Ben Uliel (* 1994) was charged on January 3, 2016 with triple murder. Ben Uliel, the son of a rabbi, was known in the Hilltop Youth for various actions that were not criminally relevant. He lived with his wife and child in the Outpost Adei Ad in the immediate vicinity of the Palestinian village of Duma.

According to the indictment, Ben Uliel agreed to meet his then 17-year-old accomplice in the act that was supposed to be in retaliation for the murder of Malachi Rosenfeld by Palestinians. Ben Uliel came to the meeting point with two incendiary devices, but since the young person did not appear, he carried out the act alone. He had chosen a house in Duma that appeared to be inhabited (but was empty that night) and first sprayed the words “Vengeance” and “Long live the King Messiah” on the wall. He then threw the first incendiary device through a window, whereupon the two-story building caught fire. Now he turned to the house of the Dawabsheh family, where he had succeeded in opening the bedroom window and throwing the second incendiary device into it, whereupon he fled the scene on foot. The family of four slept in this room; only one boy survived with severe burn injuries.

After the attack on the Dawabsheh family, Ben Uliel moved to Jerusalem, where he joined the Breslover Hasidim.

In June, an Israeli court annulled the confessions of both suspects, which had been submitted to "necessary interrogations". The minor at the time of the crime only has to answer for involvement in other hate crimes. In July 2018, the now 19-year-old was released into house arrest. This is not the case with Ben Uliel, who later confessed to the attack in Duma and, according to the authorities, had knowledge of the perpetrators.

Second generation

During a nightly search of an apartment in Jerusalem in the summer of 2017, the police arrested nine people who belong to the second generation of Hilltop Youth. They were charged with, among other things, arson attacks on cars in two Palestinian villages and damage to diplomatic vehicles in Jerusalem.

literature

  • Shimi Friedman: The Hilltop Youth: A Stage of Resistance and Counter culture Practice. Lexington Books, London 2018. ISBN 978-1-4985-6094-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elisha Ben Kimon: Wild outpost reveals extremism of 'hilltop youth'. In: ynetnews.com. April 12, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Ayala Goldman: Judgment after attack on church. July 5, 2017. Retrieved August 26, 2018 .
  3. ^ Shimi Friedman: The Hilltop Youth . S. 8 .
  4. ^ Shimi Friedman: The Hilltop Youth . S. 71 .
  5. ↑ Samantha M. Shapiro: The Unsettlers. In: The New York Times Magazine. August 26, 2003. Retrieved August 26, 2018 .
  6. ^ Jacob Magid: Hilltop youth invite Israelis to get to know them in new video. October 26, 2017. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  7. ^ Carlo Aldrovandi: Apocalyptic Movements in Contemporary Politics: Christian and Jewish Zionism . Palgrave macmillan, 2014, p. 123 .
  8. ↑ a b c Yotam Berger: Jerusalem Stakeout Reveals 'New Generation' of Radical Jewish Settlers. In: Haaretz. August 27, 2017. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  9. ^ A b Yossi Melman: Comment: Cracking down on the Jewish settler hilltop youth. July 31, 2016, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  10. ↑ a b Shimi Friedman: The Hilltop Youth . S. 8 .
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g h Security forces solve arson attack at the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes. In: Israel Foreign Ministry press release. July 29, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  12. ↑ a b Ben Lynfield: Jewish extremists suspected of torching Sea of ​​Galilee 'loaves and fishes' church in Tabgha. In: Independent. June 18, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Jewish fanatics suspected of being perpetrators. Arson attack on the pilgrimage site: 16 young people arrested. In: HNA. June 18, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Gil Yaron: The hatred in the Holy Land hits German Catholics. In: welt.de. June 18, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Jesus miracle church in Israel damaged 'by arson'. In: BBC News. June 18, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Amira Hass: In a Palestinian Village, the Smell of Fire and Fear Remains. In: Haaretz. December 4, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  17. ^ Shimi Friedman: The Hilltop Youth . S. 9-10 .
  18. ↑ Chaim Levinson: Jewish Terror Doesn't Happen Because of Radical Rabbis, but in Spite of Them. In: The Times of Israel. December 27, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  19. ↑ Nicodemus Schnabel in conversation with Monika Dittrich: Hooligans der Religion. In: Deutschlandfunk. September 22, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  20. ^ Simona Weinglass: Who is Meir Ettinger, the Shin Bet's No.1 alleged Jewish nationalist? In: The Times of Israel. August 6, 2015, accessed August 25, 2018 .
  21. ↑ Amanda Borschel-Dan: As support widens for Jewish prayer on Temple Mount, should we fear apocalyptic consequences? In: The Times of Israel. April 28, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  22. ^ A b c Jacob Magid: Three Jewish extremists indicted for throwing rocks at Palestinians. In: The Times of Israel. November 22, 2017. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
  23. ↑ Ben Hartman: Far-right activist Ettinger released after 10 months administrative detention. In: The Jerusalem Post. June 1, 2016, accessed August 25, 2018 .
  24. ^ Daniel Douek: Jewish extremist gets two years for manifesto encouraging violence. In: The Times of Israel. March 17, 2016, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  25. ^ Third suspect charged in arson at 'miracle' church. In: The Times of Israel. July 13, 2015, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  26. ↑ Tabgha Arsonist: Four years in prison. In: kathisch.de. December 12, 2017. Retrieved August 26, 2018 .
  27. ^ A b Jacob Magid: Galilee 'Loaves' church arsonist sentenced to 4 years. In: The Times of Israel. December 12, 2017. Retrieved August 26, 2018 .
  28. ^ Jacob Magid: Judges extend sentence for Jewish extremist who torched Church of Multiplication. August 16, 2018. Retrieved August 26, 2018 .
  29. ^ Jacob Magid: Jailhouse informants, sexual harassment: How Shin Bet got Duma suspects to talk. In: The Times of Israel. June 29, 2018. Retrieved August 26, 2018 .
  30. ↑ Murder Indictments for the Dawabshe family in Duma. In: Israel Foreign Ministry press release. January 5, 2016, Retrieved August 26, 2018 (The court prohibited the press from publishing the name of the underage defendant and details of the interrogation methods (gag order)).
  31. ↑ Chaim Levinson: Who Is Amiram Ben-Uliel, the Alleged Killer of the Dawabsheh Family? In: Haaretz. January 3, 2016, accessed August 26, 2018 .
  32. ^ Jacob Magid: Court releases alleged accomplice in Duma terror attack to house arrest. In: The Times of Israel. July 12, 2018, accessed August 12, 2018 .
  33. ↑ Jacob Magid: Court quashes minor's confession under duress Extracted in Duma terror case. In: The Times of Israel. June 19, 2018. Retrieved August 26, 2018 .