At a Committee Meeting on Tuesday, Member of Knesset Zvi Sukkot, who chairs the Subcommittee on Judea and Samaria Affairs, hosted a police representative, Judea and Samaria Division Commander Avishai Moalem. He presented data on an increase in the number of complaints received by police against Jewish residents, but noted that after investigating them, half were found to have been fabricated.
According to the data presented by Moalem, in the Southern Hebron Hills region 191 cases were opened following complaints by Palestinians and leftist anarchists against Jewish residents since the beginning of the conflict. Of these, 90 cases, nearly 50%, were found to be fabricated. "Most of the complaints are filed by leftist political activists and anarchists, who are mostly in Tel Aviv when they call the police to report violence in the Southern Hebron Hills," explained Commander Moalem. "This is a common situation and it drains our resources in the field.”
Furthermore, Commander Moalem stated that in the Jordan Valley, which, like the Southern Hebron Hills, is a central hub of leftist activism, there were 70 cases opened since the beginning of the conflict, and there too, 50% of the complaints were found to be fabricated. As an example, Moalem mentions indicents where the accusers provide the name of a Jewish resident who allegedly attacked them, but fail to recognize him in a lineup. When asked how they knew the person’s name but not his face, they reply that they were told to provide that name.
Beyond the waste of police time and resources, these fabricated reports cause considerable damage to the community of Jewish residents who are besmirched with this false campaign and the State of Israel is blamed for failing to act against cases that are fabricated. "From my perspective, the reputational damage is to the entire State of Israel, and we see this in the latest sanctions."
The American campaign against Jewish communities, including sanctions against individual residents, began with the ‘settler violence campaign’ by leftist activists and foreign governments. The narrative is one of multiple blood libels spread by the UN against Israel and largely relies on reports by both local and foreign radical left-wing organizations that receive significant support from the European Union.
As an example one can see the blatant accusation that the IDF kills Palestinian children. HaKol HaYehudi, investigated this accusation which was made by the International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS). IWPS consists of female BDS activists who come to Samaria every year for a few months to carry out provocations and report to the world about "Israeli apartheid."
In one case they visited Shechem to clean the graves of “Palestinian martyrs." They uploaded a picture of a grave which they claim belongs to a “Palestinian child killed by the IDF.” However, a simple Google search with the child’s name revealed that he was killed in a fight between dueling clans in Shechem and that the local Palestinian Police even arrested suspects in his murder.
Despite the fact that this and other instances of the “settler violence” campaign have repeatedly been debunked as part of an anti-Semitic libel, there are some within the Israeli security establishment who continue to believe it.
Here at HaKol HaYehudi, we have written about how this false campaign is used by various interested parties such as the American government and others to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The American move to sanction Israelis has severe implications. Beyond the lack of trust that the US is displaying towards the democratic Israeli justice system and its ability to enforce the law, imposing sanctions on Israeli citizens could end up harming the Israeli economy during wartime.
Such sanctions could prevent foreign investors from putting their money in Israel, fearing that they could be violating US sanctions.
Furthermore, there is a concern that the US’ lack of trust in the Israeli justice system could lead to IDF soldiers being tried abroad for war crimes because the Israeli system is not considered trustworthy to investigate these cases.
Regarding US sanctions, it is also worth mentioning that the terrorist group PFLP, and the Palestinian Authority which it is linked to, have also been subject to US sanctions. However in those cases, Israel created a special arrangement with local banks to ensure they would continue to work with the organizations and their senior members.
