The Israeli hard left goes over the edge, aiding and abetting murder, in its efforts to destroy the settlement enterprise

We are all aware that the Israeli hard left is venomously opposed to the settlement enterprise in Israel . However it still comes as a shock to learn that there are those on the extreme left who are so full of hatred for their countrymen who live at, or would like to live at, the “wrong address” that they would even stoop to abetting murder – of Palestinians! – to prevent Jews from acquiring land over the Green Line.

Ezra Nawi is one such extreme leftist and he shamelessly admitted in a TV documentary that he helps kill other Palestinians who sell land to Jews:

A prominent Israeli campaigner for Palestinian rights was recorded saying that he helps Palestinian authorities find and kill Palestinians who sell land to Jews.

Ezra Nawi, who actively aids and abets the murder of Palestinian land sellers

The recording was aired Thursday by the television program Uvda of Israel’s Channel 2. In it, Ezra Nawi, a Jewish far-left activist from the Ta’ayush group, is heard speaking about four Palestinian real estate sellers, whom Nawi said mistook him for a Jew interested in buying their property.

“Straight away I give their pictures and phone numbers to the Preventive Security Force,” Nawi is heard saying in reference to the Palestinian Authority’s counterintelligence arm. “The Palestinian Authority catches them and kills them. But before it kills them, they get beat up a lot.”

In the Palestinian Authority, the penal code reserves capital punishment for anyone convicted of selling land to Jews. This law, which Palestinian officials defended as designed to prevent takeovers by settlers, has not been implemented in Palestinian courts, where sellers of land to Jews are usually sentenced to several years in prison. However, in recent years several Palestinian have been murdered for selling land. Their murders have remained unsolved.

Nawi was also documented obtaining information from a Palestinian who believed Nawi was a Jew interested in purchasing land. Nawi is seen saying he intends to give that information to Palestinian security officials as well. According to Uvda, an activist with the human rights group B’Tselem helped Nawi set up the would-be seller in a sting operation in which the seller would be arrested.

The recordings and footage were collected by right-wing activists who secretly recorded Nawi.

I’m not sure what I find more shocking: Nawi’s bare-faced admission that he passes on names of Palestinian sellers to the Palestinian authorities knowing full well that they face the death-sentence, or the simple fact that Israeli leftists are actively participating in such treasonous operations.

After all, as we have seen for instance with the Duma case, the Leftist chatterati who appoint themselves the arbiters of Israel’s moral condition, who claim to care so much about Palestinians (allegedly) harmed by Jews, are supremely uninterested if their very own actions lead Palestinians to be killed, as AB Yehoshua said, for example: “it’s the Palestinians’ business”:

Famed leftist writer AB Yehoshua, who is a member of the public council of B’tselem, sees nothing wrong with the fact that senior activists in B’tselem and Taayoush have been informing on Arabs who tried to sell land to Jews and handing them over to the Palestinian Authority security mechanism, where they can expect to be tortured and sentenced to death.

Nationalist-conservative website Mida contacted several members of the organization’s public council following the exposé broadcast last week on a Channel 2 in the hope of eliciting some kind of condemnation, following the revelations. However, none was forthcoming.

AB Yeshoshua, who has received the Israel Prize for Hebrew literature and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other awards, instead supported the organization for informing on the would-be land sellers.

“Selling of land needs to be clear and to be written down in the land registry,” he said. “You cannot hide the sale of land by one person to another. The [Palestinian] Authority’s mechanisms and the mechanisms of a formal body that we recognize and about whose existence we are glad. We want transparency. Everything that is done here – I want transparency. Including in the Palestinian Authority. Including land sales – everything must be transparent.”

Mida asked him what he thinks about a situation in which the transparency causes people to be wronged.

“What their fate will be is a separate matter,” he said. “The transparency needs to be clear. They shouldn’t torture people who sell land. That must not be done, of course, we all oppose this. But transparency is one thing, the torture is another. Whom they torture and whom they do not torture, that is their problem already.”

What a disingenuous reply! “They shouldn’t torture” he sanctimoniously says, while knowing full well that the fate of the land sellers is not “only” torture, but possibly death.

B’tselem’s activists need not interfere in the “relations among the Palestinians,” he said. “We see it as a foreign country. If the Authority’s laws give them the right to do so, then that’s it.”

More hypocrisy. If the Palestinians are a “foreign country” why are they interfering in its dealings? Who are they, as Israelis, to interfere in a foreign country’s internal affairs? Especially as such interference leads directly to murder!

And they have the gall to call themselves “human rights activists”! Yeah, right.

Haaretz, that outspoken bastion of “human rights” (but not for Jews) vindictively outed the brave volunteer who infiltrated the Leftist group:

The Haaretz newspaper has exposed the alleged identity of the young man who infiltrated leftist groups as part of an investigative report that was aired on Channel 2 last week.

The man, who was planted in the leftist groups by a group called Ad Kan, recorded the most damning documentary materials aired on the show, by use of a hidden camera. His identity was kept secret on the show, and the IDF, too, refrained from making it public when he was awarded the Chief of Staff’s citation for his courage in Operation Protective Edge.

According to the Channel 2 report, the man – who was referred to by the pseudonym “Arik,” was the one who asked the IDF to keep his name secret, in order to make it possible for him to continue to infiltrate the leftist groups.

The investigative report has severely damaged the groups’ image as being concerned with “human rights,” by exposing that senior members of B’tselem and Ta’ayush have been informing on Arabs in Judea and Samaria who wish to sell land to Jews, in the knowledge that this leads to their arrest and torture by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which issues death sentences to people who sell land to Jews.

In an apparent retaliatory move, Haaretz‘s Amira Hass published what she said is Arik’s true, full name, and said it was possible to find his account on Facebook. She noted that the man’s girlfriend, who was identified only as Anna on the television program, and whose face was not shown, can also be seen in Facebook photos with him.

According to the investigative report, Arik took part in Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and found himself, at one point, alone in hostile territory, facing three terrorists inside a building in the Shejaiya neighborhood. The incident ended with the three terrorists dead, and with Arik making it out of the building a split second before it was blown up. He, himself, suffered wounds from a grenade.

…

Arik later received the Chief of Staff’s citation for his heroism in Gaza.

If Hass thinks she has discredited “Arik” she has another think coming. She has only enhanced this brave hero’s reputation and made herself look even meaner and smaller and more vindictive than she normally is. No small feat!

The good news is that the police are now finally going to investigate this treasonous group:

Police confirmed Sunday morning that an inquiry has been opened against extreme left-wing activists who provided to Palestinian authorities the names of Palestinians accused of selling land to Jews.

The evidence first surfaced on a Channel 2 investigative journalism show broadcast last week.

Police have not yet provided further information regarding the nature of the investigation.

From the preliminary probe, it is clear that the left-wing activists were fully aware that the Palestinians who they accused would likely be subject to torture and or capital punishment.

In connection with this issue an article in the Times of Israel which asks “why does Europe fund Israeli left-wing groups” (which is worth reading for all the information within it) quoted, in an almost by-the-way fashion, the EU’s objection to the death penalty:

Israel is also not being singled out, the EU argues, rejecting an often-made accusation that it focuses disproportionate amounts of money on groups undermining the policy of Israel’s elected government.

“We are particularly proud of the numerous projects we have supported in recent years in the US to support the fight against the death penalty,” the EU official in Tel Aviv said. “This is hardly an uncontroversial issue in America, yet the US government does not criticize this as unwarranted interference in the affairs of a sovereign country, and, like Israel, an ally.”

Given that this is their position, can we now expect the EU to cease funding B’tselem and Taayush (if it indeed funds the latter) since they actively work to send innocent Palestinian land-sellers to their death?

I would recommend that you do not hold your breath while waiting for such an event to happen.

But the Israeli government must quote the EU’s words directly back at it. I quote:

The EU fields an additional argument against claims that it is meddling in Israel’s internal affairs by funding NGOs fighting for human rights.

“Human rights, in general, and issues relating to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are not internal affairs,” the EU ambassador’s leaked talking points argue. “Defending and promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms cannot be considered as unlawful interference, especially when such activities come from within Israel’s civil society itself.”

Do Palestinian human rights only matter when they are affected by Israel?  If so then the EU are outright hypocrites (OK, we knew that already), not to mention antisemites, for demonising and singling out Israel alone.

Or are Palestinian human rights a value in and of themselves?  In which case the EU must distance itself from B’tselem.

I can’t wait to see that day.

Update: Here is another article on this subject by Edgar Davidson: Why is Britain funding the murder of Arabs who sell land to Jews?

The ‘British’ Foreign & Commonwealth Office angle on this story is that the British Government – through taxpayer money has been directly funding both the B’teslem and Ta’ayush organisations to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Moreover, these organisations also receive substantial additional funding indirectly from British taxpayers via EU grants to which Britain contributes.