*Yaakov Teitel, accused of murdering two Arabs and of placing a bomb at a anti-nationalist professor’s home, was a loner who was hardly known by no more than 40 people in Judea and Samaria, says former Yesha spokeswoman Emily Arousi .
The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) stated that Teitel was “on the fringe of the fringe” of nationalists, but mainstream media have already tried to connect Teitel with the nationalist religious movement. Emily Arousi, now a journalist who writes regularly for the Yisrael HaYom (Israel Today) newspaper, wrote Monday that Teitel's arrest has prompted a new wave of verbal assaults on the national religious community.
She pointed out that when former Finance Minister Avraham Hirschson was indicted and later convicted for stealing money from a fund for Holocaust survivors, “his political friends were not forced to defend themselves, and when performer Dudu Topaz was discovered to be a criminal, no one in the world of television was asked to take responsibility."
“300,000 people live in Judea and Samaria," Amrousi said, "and perhaps 40 of them even knew Teitel, but none of them know of his alleged crimes. They do not have any obligation to condemn his acts any more than every other law abiding citizen. They do not have to go through ‘soul-searching’ because of acts that they had nothing to do with."
A statement issued by the community of Shvut Rachel, where Teitel resides, said that the crimes attributed to him are “abhorrent," but added: "Attempts by the left to take advantage of the situation for incitement against all of the settlers are ugly and pathetic.”
MK Zevulun Orlev (Jewish Home) called upon the pubic and the media “to refrain from cynically taking advantage of the investigation in order to place labels on the entire religious Zionist sector, which has no reason to apologize."
The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) immediately denounced Teitel’s alleged crimes.
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