Anatomy of a Frame
By Steve Rodan
On the morning of July 31, 2015, somebody threw a firebomb into a Palestinian home in the West Bank village of Duma. Two members of a family burned to death in the 2 a.m. attack. A third died weeks later.
Within hours, Israel, including its president and prime minister, claimed that this was the work of Jews, or "extremists" who lived not far from Duma. An official statement said that Hebrew writing was found scrawled on the wall of a nearby house.
"Israel considers the attack an act of terrorism and is acting on the assumption that it was carried out by Israeli extremists," the Israel Embassy in Washington said.
The Israeli reaction, egged on by leading newspaper columnists, was not merely hasty. It was meant to conform with accusations by the Palestinian Authority that the arson was the work of Jews. The aim was also to show Israel's willingness to rapidly investigate and prosecute. Soon, the Israeli claim was supported by the European Union, United Nations and implicitly by the United States. The conclusion appeared air-tight: so-called Jewish settlers, despite no evidence, had been blamed for 15 previous arsons, several of which were in Duma. So, why would the July 31 attack be any different?
"Panicked by the media assault, the political echelons and the security forces threw due process to the wind," Martin Sherman, executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote.
The result was that neither Israel nor the PA investigated the Duma arson. The dye had been cast: Jews were the perpetrators, worse than their Arab enemies. Now the job was to find a fall guy.
Enter the secret police
Over nearly five months, Israel's secret police, called the General Security Services, rounded up some 100 young Jews. They were held without trial as well as denied access to their attorney. Many of them were beaten and even tortured in what the Knesset was told marked "extraordinary measures." A media blackout was imposed on the investigation.
But no suspect was charged. The reasons given by senior officials varied: There was insufficient evidence; particularly to link them to the scene of the attack; holding a trial might reveal "sensitive information."
"[There is] not enough evidence against them," then-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon told Israel Army Radio on Dec. 22, 2015.
Less than two weeks later, the GSS torture worked. Two young Jews, one of them a U.S. citizen, confessed to throwing the firebomb in Duma. Eventually, the American, then 17 years old, was released. The Israeli, Amiram Ben-Uliel, was charged with killing three people in an act of terrorism.
Throughout the investigation, there was no word that either Israel or the PA had interrogated residents of Duma. But the Israeli daily Haaretz, regarded as extremely hostile to the Jewish presence in the West Bank, interviewed a witness hours after the attack. The man, a relative of the victims, the Dawabshe family, did not say the attackers were Jews. But he did say that they were not carrying firearms.
“I saw Sa'ad and Reham [two of the victims of the attack] burning on the ground," the relative said. "Next to them were two masked men, one beside each of them. They were dressed in jeans and black long-sleeved shirts. Their faces were covered with a balaclava, with only the mouth and eyes visible."
"The streetlight shone directly on them," the witness, later identified as Ibrahim Dawabshe, told Haaretz. "I was horrified by what I saw. They saw me and I was frightened and ran back home. I told my brother Bishar to get help and returned to Sa'ad’s house where I no longer saw the two masked men."[1]
This was the only eyewitness account reported: Two unarmed men reached the center of Duma, threw a firebomb in which three people died. At least one villager arrived at the scene, but the attackers didn't try to escape. Instead, the villager fled without any threat made by the suspected attackers.
‘Punish the Israeli settlers’
But this account contradicted the initial Israeli assessment. It also would damage the demand by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for Israel to "punish the Israeli settlers behind the terrible crime..." [2]
Both privately and publicly, Israelis and Palestinians agreed that Duma had long been a battleground of rival clans. Villagers were attacked and even killed. Homes and other property were torched or vandalized. There were no reports of arrests or prosecution for these crimes. The reason was fear of retaliation as both clans had members in the PA security forces. The internecine violence was similar in other Palestinian towns and cities.
The Duma arsons continued long after the arrest and indictment of Ben-Uliel, including an attack on the brother of one of the victims, Saad Dawahsheh. At least three arsons were reported in Duma in the year after the July 2015 attack. But Israeli authorities, denying any connection, refused to search for a link.
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America and recipient of a U.S. State Department award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to national and international affairs," said the evidence in Duma pointed to Palestinian involvement. On Aug. 4, 2015, four days after the arson at Duma, Klein reviewed the allegations and concluded that there were "strong suspicions that the fire last week was the continuation of an 18-year-old feud between two Arab clans in Duma."
"The perpetrators first, are purported to have set fire to an empty house next door to the Dawabsha’s [sic] home," Klein said in a letter to ZOA members. "Yet, a burning house would likely have attracted attention, so as not to have left enough time for the scenario that is alleged by Palestinian Arabs, in regards to the second house, to have occurred. It is alleged that after setting fire to the first empty neighboring house, Israeli perpetrators entered the protected Dawabsha home and stayed there, insisting that the family remain in the home when setting this second house on fire.
"Notably, the two homes set on fire were in the center of a hostile Arab village – an unlikely choice for Israelis entering from outside the village," Klein wrote. "It would have been extremely difficult for Israeli Jews to reach and then to depart from the center of a hostile Arab village without being detected."
Klein then examined the reports that Hebrew graffiti was found at the scene of the arsons. The graffiti included the words "Revenge the King Mashiach," accompanied by the symbol of the Lubavitcher U.S.-headquartered Hasidic movement, which Klein said made no sense and would never have been scrawled by a Jew. [3]
Klein's assertion proved credible. The Duma arsons continued long after the arrest and indictment of Ben-Uliel, including an attack on the brother of one of the victims, Saad Dawahshe,. At least three arsons were reported in Duma in the year after the July 2015 attack. But Israeli authorities denied any connection.
Israel was coming under heavy international pressure. A poll of Americans reported that more than one-third supported "punitive measures against Israel over settlements." [4]
The pace of the Israeli investigation was also deemed insufficient.
‘Concerned by lack of progress’
"Acknowledging the wide condemnations issued at the time of the incident by Israeli and Palestinian leaders, I am nevertheless concerned by the lack of progress in identifying and prosecuting the perpetrators of this outrage," Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said on Sept. 7. [5]
At the State Department, officials responded to Israeli reports that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. Department spokesman John Kirby reiterated his demand for prosecution.
"You've heard me say it’s critical that the perpetrators of the attack against this family are prosecuted and they’re brought to justice," Kirby said. [6]
In January 2016, Ben-Uliel was indicted on murder and terrorism charges. The indictment bore no resemblance to the statements by the Palestinian witness or senior Israeli officials. The indictment alleged that Ben-Uliel was the only attacker in Duma, and that he did everything: First, he threw a firebomb into a two-story building. When Ben-Uliel saw there was nobody in the building, he allegedly went to the Dawabshe home, assembled another firebomb in the yard, spray-painted graffiti on the walls and threw a second firebomb. He then fled Duma on foot undetected. [7]
Other Jews, however, remained in custody. Meir Ettinger was not allowed to see an attorney for nearly a year. He was held in what was called administrative detention, without charges, hearings or bail. Liel Liebovitz, the editor of the U.S. online magazine Tablet, discussed Ettinger's case with his attorney as well as Israeli officials.
‘Thought-crimes’
"In fact, it is hard, reviewing the evidence, not to conclude that the charges against Ettinger amount to little else but accusations of thought-crimes," Liebowitz wrote. [8]
In the end, all the other suspects were released, many of them asserting that they had been beaten severely and denied sleep during detention. It took nearly four years for the prosecution of Ben-Uliel. The Tel Aviv District Court threw out two of his confessions elicited under torture but ruled the last one permissible. That justified the sentence of three and a half life terms.
"Unfortunately, the approach the court took was highly problematic, especially in light of the unlawful interrogation practice revealed by the facts in the case," the Israel Democracy Institute wrote in July 2018. "The district court decision also fuels doubts as to whether even the weak standards of necessity proclaimed by the state were respected." [9]
In 2022, the Supreme Court, which authorized the denial of civil liberties during the interrogation, rejected an appeal by Ben-Uliel, saying that he was certainly guilty. Today, Ben-Uliel remains in solitary confinement, unable to pray or learn Torah with other inmates. His visitation rights are heavily restricted.
Torture: the new normal
The Supreme Court's approval of torture represents the new normal in Israel. It highlights the difference in treatment by the police and secret services of Jews and non-Jews. Non-Jews can count on foreign embassies and their governments to intervene. For Jewish detainees, there is nobody.
And this is exactly what the United States and EU want: a corrupt and unaccountable judicial system that facilitates their orders to Israel. That is why Washington and Brussels have gone ballistic over Knesset efforts to reform Israel's judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, which gave itself the power to impose anti-Jewish values, veto legislation, torpedo government decisions and even appoint judges. Such a judiciary is vital to protecting the elite and enabling foreign powers to intervene and influence everything in Israel. It would continue the unholy marriage of the Supreme Court, secret police and prosecutors. That will ensure the framing of many more Amiram Ben-Uliels.
Notes
1. "Relative of Arson Attack Victims: I Saw Two Masked Men Standing by as They Burned." Amira Hess. Haaretz. July 31, 2015.
2. "Abbas Receives Phone Call from Netanyahu following Duma Attack." Wafa. July 31, 2015]. https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/84422]
3. "ZOA: Stop Rush To Blame Jews For Attack on Arab Home, In Light Of History of Arab Lies About Attacks." Aug. 4, 2015. https://zoa.org/2015/08/10292521-zoa-stop-rush-to-blame-jews-for-attack-on-arab-home-in-light-of-history-of-arab-lies-about-attacks/
4. "American attitudes toward the Middle East and Israel." Brookings Institute. Shibley Telhami. Dec. 4, 2015. https://www.brookings.edu/research/american-attitudes-toward-the-middle-east-and-israel/
5. "Statement by the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Mr. Nickolay Mladenov, on the death of Reham Dawabsha." https://unsco.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/statement_by_the_un_special_coordinator_-_7_september_2015.pdf
6. State Department. briefing. Dec. 17, 2015.
7. "Israel Charges Two Jews Over West Bank Arson Murders." Chaim Levinson and Barak David. Haaretz. Jan. 3, 2016.
8. "Let Meir Ettinger Attend His Son’s Bris." Liel Liebovitz. Tablet. March 30, 2016. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/let-meir-ettinger-attend-his-sons-bris
9. "Special Interrogations,’ Confessions and the Duma Arson Attack." Prof. Yuval Shany, Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer.. July 9, 2018. https://en.idi.org.il/articles/24219