A confrontation took place between National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and representatives of the NSA and the Shin Bet regarding the accusations of “settler violence,” Reshet Bet Radio reported Wednesday morning. Ben Gvir demanded clarification from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, asking: “How did we get to a situation where you are distributing data independently, which is both incorrect and causes significant damage to the country?”
During a weekly situation assessment meeting Ben Gvir held about two weeks ago, the minister presented data that were presented by the police and asserted, “The police presented clear data, there is no ‘settler violence.'”
In the meeting with the NSA and the Shin Bet, the minister also insisted that unlike the claims made repeatedly by the Biden administration and the EU, settler violence “is a marginal phenomenon and there is a sharp decrease in the actions of Jews against Arabs.”
At that point, the NSA representative intervened and clarified, “We are aware of the police data, but we received other data from the IDF and the Shin Bet.”
An angry Ben Gvir responded: “What do you mean? Since when do the IDF and the Shin Bet conduct such investigations and publish statistics? There is one body that collects data on crimes, and that is the Israel Police.”
A representative of the IDF Operations Division at the discussion explained, “There was a specific decision that we would present the data that we know.”
The Shin Bet representative added, “There is indeed a discrepancy between the police’s data and the IDF’s data, but we think that the police’s data do not reflect all the incidents.”
Ben Gvir did not accept those explanations and attacked the representatives of the IDF, the Shin Bet, and the NSA, saying, “What kind of thing is this, that other bodies go and release data that is neither under their authority nor in their area of knowledge, and are contrary to the data of the Israel Police, which is the relevant body. These [superfluous] data cause damage to our standing in the world.”
He demanded “to receive clarifications from NSA and the defense minister as to how we came to the situation where you are distributing data independently which is both incorrect and causes significant damage to the state.”
On November 15, the Commander of the IDF Central Command Major General Yehuda Fox reassured the elected officials of Binyamin Regional Council that as far as he was concerned, the accusations regarding settler violence were libelous.
“99% percent of the hilltop youths do not harm anyone, neither the army nor anyone else. There is no such concept as ‘settler violence.’ I’ve been saying this on numerous occasions. There are violent incidents in all kinds of places around the country,” Fox reiterated.
However, as I reported on December 14 (Biden Suspends Sale of 20K Rifles to ‘Violent Settlers’ following General Yehuda Fox’s ‘Secret Report’), the same Major General Fox authored a document warning that the police do not deal with Jewish terrorism in the territories because they follow a directive from National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
According to News12 journalist Ayala Dayan, the Fox document was classified and known to only a select few, but she managed nevertheless to report that Fox attached to his document the opinion of senior Shin Bet officials, including Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, all of whom agreed with Fox that the police hardly enforce the law against “nationalist crime,” meaning crimes allegedly carried out by nationalist Jews. The Shin Bet cited conversations with senior police officials from which it appears that there exists a directive from the minister to the senior officials of the Judea and Samaria police district to avoid enforcement against extreme right-wing elements.
Is it any wonder that the Biden administration, already residing on a planet where bands of armed Jews go out every night to eat Arab babies, was alarmed by the News12 report that confirmed all their suspicions without offering a scintilla of hard evidence?
It didn’t make a difference that the Israel Police, in its response that was included in the News12 segment, pointed out that “since the beginning of the war, there has been a 50% decrease in incidents that are included in nationalist crime compared to the same period last year, and there is an increase of about 30% in the number of cases opened by the joint activity of the police, the IDF, and other security agencies. The Israel Police, the Judea and Samaria District, and the rest of the security agencies will continue to act at all times against terrorist incidents.”
