Screenshot: Graffiti at the scene; Video credit: Inouim B’Mishpat Duma
Sunday, May 3, 2020, 13:15 In July 2015, the Dawabsheh family’s house in Kfar Duma was set on fire in an arson attack. The video series “Exposing the Duma Blood Libel” presents the irregularities in the K’far Duma case. (See here for a report from Honenu on the topic.) Part 3 of the series states that high-ranking officials in the government and the security system rushed to label the arson “Jewish terror” in light of Hebrew graffiti found at the crime scene, despite previous incidents in which Arab criminals spray painted similar graffiti designed to deceive the police and conceal the identity of the perpetrators.
Several hours after the arson attack in Kfar Duma, security officials announced that the incident was “Jewish terror”. High-ranking members of the government did not wait for the initial results of the crime scene investigation before condemning the arson as a “Jewish nationalist crime”. The IDF also called it “Jewish terror”, Prime Minister Netanyahu referred to the incident as a “terror attack”, President Rivlin wrote, “Some of my people chose the way of terror”, and there were others who made similar statements.
How did everyone know so quickly that the arsonists were Jews? Hebrew graffiti was found spray painted at the scene of the crime, which led to the conclusion that Jews were responsible for the act.
However there have been many incidents in which similar graffiti has been found at crime scenes, which turned out to be attempts by Arab criminals to deceive the police and create the appearance of a Jewish nationalist crime.
Screen shot, headline from Hadashot 12; Video credit: Inouim B’Mishpat Duma
For example, in 2011 the police revealed the intent of a crime family in Yaffo to explode the Hassan Bek Mosque on the Tel Aviv boardwalk as an act of revenge in a business dispute. The findings of the investigation indicated that their plan had been to spray paint “price tag”, in Hebrew, on the walls of the mosque in order to give the incident the appearance of a Jewish act of revenge. This occurred a matter of days after the murder of the Fogel family in Itamar. (See image at right.)
A similar incident occurred in Zarzir, an Arab town in the northern region of Israel. Youths broke into a school, vandalized it and spray painted graffiti reading “Death to the Arabs,” in Hebrew, in order to deceive the police. Over the past few years there have been many incidents of arson and other damage in the Arab population carried out to resemble ‘price tag’ attacks, which led Arabs to claim that the incidents were Jewish nationalist crimes. The police refuted the claims.
Such incidents have not dissuaded the police and the GSS who, “marked the [Duma] arson as a Jewish nationalist crime, and dragged many political leaders after them. From that moment on there has been a race against time to announce that the Duma case has been solved. The consequences of it are well known.”
Ori Kirshenbaum, Honenu: “As the heads of the investigation have already admitted in court, from the first moment the incident was labeled a Jewish nationalist crime because of the graffiti spray painted at the scene. After the goal [to convict specifically Jewish perpetrators] was firmly set, political leaders publicized statements [asserting that the arsonists were Jews] throughout the world. This prevented a thorough and serious investigation of other possibilities, such as Arab crime. We all hope that Amiram [the main defendant in the case] will be released soon. The time has come for a genuine investigation into the Duma arson attack.”
See here for an expert opinion that the graffiti found at the scene of the arson does not match the handwriting of Amiram Ben Uliel, and was written by two different people.
“Exposing the Duma Blood Libel” – Part 1
“Exposing the Duma Blood Libel” – Part 2
“Exposing the Duma Blood Libel” – Part 4