Israeli police detained 15 suspected Jewish extremists following an undercover investigation into a group accused of tracking down and threatening Arab men dating Jewish women, authorities said Sunday.
Among those arrested was Benzi Gopstein, a prominent leader of the Israeli extreme-right group Lehava.
Arrests and searches for evidence were carried out simultaneously at addresses in Jerusalem, northern and southern Israel and in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, police said.
Members of the Jewish extreme-right group Lehava, including its leader, Benzi Gopstein (pictured) were arrested on Sunday in Israel for threatening Arab men dating Jewish woman
‘Fifteen suspects known to the police as active in the Lehava organisation were arrested or detained for questioning during the night as part of a police investigation on suspicion that they acted to locate and threaten (Arab) minority members with connections to Jewish young women or girls,’ a police statement said.
Five of the suspects were later taken for remand hearings, police said.
Lehava opposes inter-marriage. In August 2014, its activists staged a rally where racist slogans, including ‘Death to Arabs!’, were shouted at the wedding near Tel Aviv of a Muslim man and Jewish woman.
Arabs account for some 17.5 per cent of Israel’s eight million population, and are descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land following the creation of Israel in 1948.
Speaking to reporters at his hearing at Jerusalem magistrates’ court, Gopstein said he was arrested for telling a Jewish woman that she should not date an Arab man, insisting he did no wrong.
‘Lehava operates within the limits of law only,’ he said. ‘It’s all nonsense.’
The court put Gopstein under house arrest, while the remand of two others was extended by two days.
The rest were allowed to return home, Haaretz newspaper said.
The police statement said that the latest arrests were the result of an undercover investigation.
‘It uncovered organised and pre-meditated activity believed to have been carried out by the suspects, known members of Lehava,’ it said.
In April, six Israelis, including two soldiers, were arrested for alleged racist attacks against Arabs with knives and other weapons and charged with ‘terrorist’ offences.
Police said they were influenced by a Lehava video.
Critics of Lehava argue that the group seeks to sow hatred between Jews and Arabs and are regularly fanning the flames of violence in the already troubled and bloodied region.
Since its establishment, Lehava launched anti-Arab campaigns everywhere from shops and beaches to the synagogues and schools, bidding the public not only to report any Jewish-Arab romantic liaisons, but also not to rent Arabs apartments, and not employ them in workplaces.
In 2011, the group even issued ‘kashrut’ certificates to praise businesses which illegally refrained from employing Arabs.
Lehava opposes inter-marriage. In 2014, at the marriage party of Morel Malka (a Jewish woman who converted to Islam) and Mahmoud Mansour (a Muslim), Lehava organised loud protests outside the wedding venue. Pictured above, Malka at the wedding
In 2014, the Times of Israel reported three Lehava members were arrested and sentenced to prison terms for setting fire to a bilingual Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem and for spray painting racist incitement messages on the school walls echoing the views of Lehava – ‘There is no coexistence with cancer’; ‘Death to the Arabs’; and ‘Kahane was right’.
Also in 2014, at the marriage party of Morel Malka (a Jewish woman who converted to Islam) and Mahmoud Mansour (a Muslim), Lehava organised loud protests outside the wedding venue, where crowds of activists screamed ‘Mohammed is dead,’ and ‘Death to Arabs.’
In the weeks prior, Lehava published a copy of the wedding invitation on their Facebook page and invited activists to come to protest the union with ‘banners and bullhorns,’ while a court issued a restraining order against the group, bidding them to remain 200 metres away from the venue, The Times of Israel reported.
A crowd of Israeli supporters also gathered opposite the Lehava protestors, holding a counter-demonstration as a show of support for the couple. Israel’s president Reuven Rivlin himself congratulated the couple, whilst denouncing Lehava’s incitement as akin to ‘rodents gnawing under the shared democratic and Jewish foundation of Israel.’
At the wedding of his own daughter in 2014, Mr Gopstein said were an Arab waiter to be found at the venue, the waiter ‘would likely be looking for the closest hospital’, according to the New York Times.
Gopstein was also questioned by police in 2015 after he condoned torching churches in Israel, in accordance with a mediaeval Jewish commandment to destroy places of idol-worship.
The Israeli government has also weighed banning Lehava. In January 2015, Israel’s defence minister Moshe Yaalon said he is considering outlawing Lehava.
‘I did this because we cannot as a country allow racist phenomena to endanger in a substantial way the fabric of life here. I did it because we must fight in every way attempts to discriminate among people because of their race, colour, sex or sexual preference,’ Mr Yaalon said.
But Mr Yaalon’s words did not result in a ban and in August 2015, Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, said it is lacking the conclusive evidence to outlaw the group.