Police yet to probe group that boasted of hanging posters calling to kill Abbas

Nearly a week after signs were plastered throughout West Bank, authorities say they’re looking into issue; one official says it’s not clear that signs constitute incitement

By Jacob Magid

You will receive email alerts from this author. Manage alert preferences on your profile page

You will no longer receive email alerts from this author. Manage alert preferences on your profile page

16 December 2018, 6:22 pm

Edit

Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Almost a week after the West Bank was plastered with hundreds of posters calling for the assassination of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, police have yet to question the far-right group responsible for the campaign.

Posters bearing the face of Abbas in the crosshairs of a rifle and the Hebrew words “assassinate the terror funders” appeared throughout the West Bank last Monday evening.

Two officials from the Derech Chaim movement, whose logo is branded on the signs, told The Times of Israel Sunday that they have not been approached by Israeli authorities and that they intend to continue distributing them.

On Sunday, The Times of Israel asked a police official with knowledge of the probe for an update and was told that authorities were “still looking into the matter.”

A poster showing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with a text reading ‘Assassinate murder funders’ hanging on a bus station at the entrance to the Israeli settlement of Geva Binyamin, in the West Bank on December 11, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“It’s not that simple to determine who put them up,” the official said.

Derech Chaim’s logo is on the posters and the group has released several public statements taking responsibility for the campaign.

Upon being pressed as to why police weren’t questioning members of the group, the official said it was “the first time [she] had heard of that name.”

The official added that it also was not clear whether the posters’ message constituted incitement “or just an empty threat.” She said her department was looking into the matter and would pass it along to the State Prosecutor’s Office if deemed necessary.

According to the Israeli penal code, if “a person publishes a call to commit an act of violence or terror… and if because of the inciting publication’s contents and the circumstances under which it was made public there is a real possibility that it will result in acts of violence or terror, then he is liable to five years’ imprisonment.”

The law does not specify whether it applies to incitement against non-Israelis and a police spokeswoman did not respond to The Times of Israel’s query into whether that was the reason the signs targeting Abbas had not been removed.

The posters were placed inside settlements, at bus stops and along West Bank roads by Derech Chaim, a settler group that calls for public policy in accordance with religious Jewish law, and came a day after seven people were hurt in a terror attack near the Ofra settlement.

A Palestinian woman walks next to posters showing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with a text reading “eliminate the sponsers of murder” at the Hawara checkpoint, south of the West Bank city of Nablus on December 11, 2018. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

The campaign cited payouts from the PA to Palestinians jailed in Israel for security offenses and the families of Palestinians killed while carrying out attacks. According to the Defense Ministry, the PA gives a monthly salary of NIS 12,000 ($3,180) to each security prisoner sentenced to over 30 years in prison.

Israel has long pointed to the payouts as incentivizing terror.

“The time has come to say: a murder funder = a murder,” the posters read.

The posters bearing Abbas’s face were held by right-wing demonstrators at a settler-led protest outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem last Thursday and a number of activists were filmed burning one of them.

On Tuesday shortly after the signs were hung, a spokeswoman for the police’s Judea and Samaria (West Bank) District said authorities were aware of the campaign and were looking into whether there was cause to take them down due to incitement.

The poster campaign was condemned by US President Donald Trump’s envoy for Middle East peace.

Right-wing Israelis at a protest outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem on December 13, 2018, hold signs depicting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the crosshairs of a rifle scope. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“Just like I condemn incitement from the Palestinian side, I condemn the incitement calling for the assassination of President Abbas,” White House envoy Jason Greenblatt tweeted on Wednesday. “This is completely unacceptable! All peace-loving people should condemn actions like this as well.”

Also Wednesday, a Palestinian diplomat announced that he planned to appeal to UN Security Council members to protest the posters. Letters urging the international community to “undertake its responsibilities” regarding the campaign will be delivered to the current president of the Security Council, Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said on Wednesday, according to the official PA news site Wafa.

Ivory Coast, which holds the presidency, will then be asked to distribute it to the 14 other member states of the UN body, as well as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, Mansour said. The statement did not expand on what the Palestinians were calling on the international community to do.