Translated material
Neo-Nazis in Israel
Police arrest Russian-speaking Hitler fans
Yesterday it became known that the Israeli police recently arrested eight immigrants from the countries of the former USSR on suspicion of attacks on homosexuals, religious Jews and foreign workers. All detainees, aged from 16 to 21, belong to a neo-Nazi group committed to Hitler's racial theory.The story shook the Israeli public, overshadowing even the Arab-Israeli peace talks. “The very fact that a gang of neo-Nazis was operating in the Jewish state is nonsense and simply cannot be comprehended,” said a member of the Knesset (parliament) from the ruling Kadima party, a specialist in global affairs, sighing heavily in an interview with Vremya Novostey. anti-Semitism and former Deputy Minister of Absorption Marina Solodkina.
The investigation lasted about a year before the police managed to detain all members of the neo-Nazi gang. They all came to Israel about ten years ago and speak Russian perfectly. Leaflets calling for the acquittal of Hitler, books about neo-Nazism, Nazi uniforms, swastika badges, photographs of hands raised in a Nazi salute, and even a homemade pistol and explosives were found in their home. Gang members did not hesitate to record their actions on video. Among the investigation materials there is a tape that depicts neo-Nazis attacking an emigrant from the CIS and forcing him to “apologize to the Russian people for being a Jew and a drug addict.”
The police got on the trail of the group during the investigation of the case of Rostislav Boguslavsky from the Israeli city of Petah Tikva. He was accused of wanton murder of two homeless people, as well as about five thousand cats. By checking his Internet contacts, investigators managed to identify all members of the gang. Boguslavsky is the only member of the group whose guilt has been proven. The involvement of the remaining gang members in the murders, as well as in the desecration of synagogues and cemeteries, has not been proven.
Israeli newspapers emphasize that all gang members are not halakhic Jews. Halakha is the religious norm according to which nationality is transmitted through the maternal line. At the same time, according to the Law of Return to Israel, children and grandchildren of Jews also have the right to repatriate. In other words, if a person has a Russian mother and a Jewish father, then in Israel he will not be considered a Jew, but he has the right to reside in the country.
Deputy Marina Solodkina connects the emergence of a neo-Nazi gang with the increased level of anti-Semitism in the world. “Israeli investigators looking into this case have uncovered a lot of Internet correspondence between teenagers. All of them were members of many Russian-language neo-Nazi forums, where they were considered heroes,” she told VN. Ms. Solodkina does not deny the guilt of the State of Israel in what happened: “All members of the gang came to Israel as teenagers and, apparently, did not take root in the new country. We don’t hand out chests of gold here, and life for repatriates is not easy. In this way they expressed their protest against the environment.”
The teenagers did not choose the best way to express their protest. One of the gang members, 21-year-old Eli Bonyatov, writes on one of the neo-Nazi forums that he will never become a father, since his grandfather is half “Jew.” “The main thing is not to give birth to anyone who has even a drop of Jewish blood,” writes a follower of Hitler, not embarrassed by the fact that he himself is a quarter Jewish.
Yesterday, the arrest of young people suspected of neo-Nazi activities was extended for three days. During this time, law enforcement agencies must decide what to do with them next. The problem is that the police cannot initiate criminal proceedings against neo-Nazis due to the lack of a legal framework. According to the Maariv newspaper, Israel still does not have a law defining Nazi propaganda as a criminal offense. The law on criminal penalties has article 144, which deals with anti-Semitism and racism. However, this article does not mention Nazism or actions related to its propaganda. It is also not possible to deprive neo-Nazis of citizenship and deport them to their country of origin, because losing Israeli citizenship is not so easy. This issue must be decided by the court based on the findings of law enforcement agencies. And as long as there is no article on Nazism in Israeli legislation, people spreading fascist ideology are not criminals.