Settler charged with incitement for advocating attacks on soldiers, Arabs

Yitzhar resident Eliraz Fein, 24, also praised the murders of teenager Muhammad Abu Khdeir, Dawabsha family

Israeli prosecutors on Tuesday charged a 24-year-old settler with incitement to violence for making statements online in support of attacks on IDF soldiers and Arabs.

Eliraz Fein, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, was arrested two years ago for taking part in an online discussion after a series of violent altercations between the army and settlers from Yitzhar. Residents of the radical settlement were mulling the legality — according to Jewish law — of attacking, and even killing, IDF soldiers “under certain circumstances.”

In a conversation in the settlement’s closed email group, the settlers debated whether Jewish law permits violence against IDF soldiers, with some saying that violence, even lethal force, was permitted when soldiers were engaged in certain actions.

Fein spoke out in favor of hurling rocks at Jews — “even if the rock causes the death of a soldier.” She said that while the legitimacy of hurling rocks at Arabs was not in question, in “certain situations” it was permissible to hurl them at Jews as well.

She vowed to “defend” rock-hurlers from the settlement in public “against any outside body,” and to only criticize them in private if she thought their actions merited criticism.

Family photos lie in the remains of the Dawabsha home in the West Bank village of Duma, after it was firebombed by suspected Jewish extremists on July 31, 2015. The family's 18-month-old baby was killed in the attack and his father died of his injuries eight days later, on August 8, 2015. (screen capture: YouTube) — Family photos lie in the remains of the Dawabsha home in the West Bank village of Duma, after it was firebombed by suspected Jewish extremists on July 31, 2015. The family’s 18-month-old baby was killed in the attack and his father died of his injuries eight days later, on August 8, 2015. (screen capture: YouTube)

Following the murder of East Jerusalem teen Muhammad Abu Khdeir by Israeli extremists who kidnapped him and burned him alive, Fein wrote on Facebook: “I am proud and happy to discover that there are Jews who couldn’t stand by and be silent! I send a blessing of strength and courage to those arrested (whom I know well) who are suspected of murdering the Arabs of the family Abu Khdeir.”

She also posted celebratory messages after the torching of the Church of the Multiplication of Fishes and Loaves in June 2015 by suspected Jewish extremists, and praised the torching of the Dawabsha home in the nearby village of Duma, in which a Palestinian family was murdered, as “a proper and appropriate act.”

“It’s very appropriate and honorable in my eyes to harm Arab property,” she wrote of the attack, which killed an 18-month-old Palestinian baby and his parents.