Peace Now Price Tag Suspect Identified – OpEd
Today, Israeli police released the suspect in the price tag attacks on Jerusalem’s Peace Now office to house arrest. As soon as he got home, he fired up his computer and began sending e mail blast death threats to every Peace Now activist he knew.
Though I’ve been desperately seeking to expose this person’s identity for weeks to no avail (the court placed under gag any information about the suspect in order to protect his father, a Shin Bet officer), once he reoffended it seems everyone who knew his name lost patience and a number of victims exposed him. He is Dor Oved, whose mother is a policewoman. The family lives in Mevasseret Tzion. This is his likely Facebook profile in which I note he “curses” leftists. Visit now, as it’s likely to be shut down or made private at a moment’s notice.
The family’s defenders say the parents were distraught at his arrest and the acts he confessed to. If so, they did an awfully lousy job of monitoring him on his return home. Not to mention, where did the boy’s hate come from originally? Most children don’t develop their hatreds on their own. They’re usually nurtured in the bosom of family. And with a Sin Bet agent and police officer for parents there would be plenty of it swirling around that household.
I should warn the police, the suspect and his family that if he reoffends and threatens anyone else I’ll publish his home address and phone number here. There may be some victims who would like to respond to him in kind. I have a very firm rule against such personal invasion of privacy. But in this case, his second round of criminality and invasion of the personal lives and privacy of Peace Now activists more than merits my response.
The suspect, who allegedly confessed to the bomb threat attacks while in custody, was naturally rearrested for his new offenses. The only person I feel sorry for here beyond the victims is the defense lawyer who has a fool for a client. But I suppose the dumber one’s client the more trouble he’ll get in, which keeps you fully employed.
Besides this miscreant’s evil deeds. an independent settler activist has stalked Peace Now’s primary settlement researcher, Hagit Ofran, by vandalizing her home and spray painting price tag death threats on her apartment hallway walls. All of this comes on the heels of one of the gravest legislative onslaughts against Israeli democracy in decades. Knesset political extremists have enacted legislation criminalizing public references to BDS, passed first reading of a bill that would levy fines up to $500,000 for libel or defamation and remove the need for a plaintiff to prove damages, proposed a bill that would virtually prohibit foreign government support for human rights NGOs, proposed a bill to explicitly declare Israel a Jewish state and presumably penalize those who hold different views.
Not to mention an entirely credible series of reports that Israel has been on the verge of launching a full scale assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
All in all, I’d say Israeli democracy is at the lowest ebb I’ve seen in all the years I’ve been following the Israel-Arab conflict (going back to 1967). Lest anyone make the mistake of believing that Israeli democracy is somehow independent of Israel itself, if Israel’s values of freedom, justice and human rights die, then Israel will be dead in all but name. It will remain as a corpse into which the far right can breathe its noxious fumes of hate, land theft and racism, thereby creating a new Golem. We shall call this Golem, this Jewish monster, not Israel, but rather Judea, as in “in blood and fire Judea fell, and in blood and fire it shall arise.”
This article appeared at Tikun Olam
