Noam Federman: Should he rot, or not?
The Voice of Judea, a nationalist nightly, whines, “Jewish political prisoners held as suspects for conspiracy charges to launch attacks against Arabs have entered into a hunger strike demanding equality with Arab political prisoners, who they say have much better prison conditions. The Jewish prisoners are complaining that Noam Federman and some of the other Jewish prisoners are not even permitted visits from their wives and family.”
My instinct is to scoff, “Aww, poo poo. The terrorists aren’t being treated nice.” But is there more to this scenario than meets the eye?
Noam Federman, a prominent Kach activist who had been previously arrested for alleged connections to a “new Jewish terror underground,” was under house arrest for nearly a year when he was jailed on suspicion of providing bombs for an attack which was planned against a Muslim girl’s school. Nationalist conspiracy theorists pose that “Federman […] came very close to convincing the court that the house arrest detention order, initiated by Shabak, the Israeli intelligence agency, was illegal. So, rather than take any chances, Shabak issued a six-month administrative detention order signed by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, arrested him in the middle of his court case, and threw him behind bars.” (Note the lack of mention of the charges laid against him, or of Federman’s arrest record.)
Of course they have to shut him up—he’s a public relations disaster in the making! Sharon’s administration has no choice but to keep a lid on the religious extremism fostered in the settlement community by Kahaneites like him. After all, you can’t justify the expansion of settlements with men like Federman representing the settlers in the public eye. The man’s boasted about saying tehillim by Baruch Goldstein’s grave! At the most casual glance, Israel comes off demonic (which, in regards to settlements, they may very well be). And any expansionist will tell you, “You can’t have that…”
Thus, the man poses an apparent danger to Israeli interests. That he’d be unjustly treated by the Israeli government, then, comes at no surprise. His detention serves the dual purpose of silencing a comprimising voice, and of providing appeasement. It villifies Arabs and their supporters who criticize Jewish extremism, and aids a liberal pro-Israel movement eager for ammunition which substantiates that Israel does not discriminate between terrorists.
It’s pretty clever, but downright shameful. How many more Kach activists do they think they can martyr before they crystallize popular support for Kach in the settlements? Just as with the Palestinians, everytime Israel persecutes one of them, they reinforce the myths and delusions Kahaneists propagate to vulnerable Orthodox youth, and foster more radicalism and extremism.
But I think Israel realizes this. That’s why they haven’t killed Arafat, and likely why Federman was just under house arrest. But he slipped up by getting involved in this bomb plot and that’s why now, he’s getting his just desserts.
Tell Federman to own up to his bullshit, and maybe Israel will ease up on him.
if Federman was a Palestinian planning on blowing up an Israeli girl’s school, Israel might have dropped a bomb or two on his house, or bulldozed it, claiming he was a “ticking bomb”. So I think his complaint of harsh treatment after first being under “house arrest” and then after committing further crimes, being arrested and jailed without injury is rather silly.
Administrative detention seems a bit totalitarian to me though. I feel like they should charge people with something or let them go until they can be charged with something.
if Federman was a Palestinian planning on blowing up an Israeli girl’s school, Israel might have dropped a bomb or two on his house, or bulldozed it, claiming he was a “ticking bomb”.
i disagree. while, by my estimation, sharon has definitely gone overboard as of late, israel does make every attempt to extradite and try palestinian terrorists. but because the palestinian government provides protection for them (as well as their finances and weaponry), and because the p.n.a. refuses to turn suspected terrorists over to israeli authorities, and because the p.n.a. refuses to go after the terrorists themselves (despite that being a condition of every peace accord arafat has ever signed), israel’s choices are slim. they have to act.