Dvir Kariv, former agent of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), told Arutz Sheva that the incident in which students at the Pri Haaretz Yeshiva in Rechelim are being questioned, is a terrorist incident in every sense of the word, even if it appears that it was an incident of terrorism is that was not organized and planned.
“Rock-throwing is terrorism just as setting fire to a home can cause damage to property or kill people. This is terrorism. Not terrorism that was planned as a terror attack by a squad that plans terrorist attacks, as may have been the case in Duma - I do not know since I am no longer in the system - but it is terror that needs to be dealt with,” said Kariv.
"Terrorism is terror attacks as a result of ideological motives. There was no intention here to steal the vehicle, there’s no criminal intent here. This is an ideological attack carried out by extremist people who are trying to change reality," he continued.
Asked about the claims of the teens’ lawyers, friends and family members about the conditions under which they’re held, Kariv said that an interrogation at the Shin Bet is not a pleasant experience, as he put it.
"This is not a pleasant thing, but we must say that when people are arrested following a terror investigation, they are arrested over intelligence information that says they are connected to the attack. This intelligence information is brought before a judge, who hands down days of detention, and sometimes also prevents a lawyer from seeing the suspects when he thinks there is some basis to the suspicions. This does not mean they’re guilty but defines them as suspects in terrorist activity, and in such a situation the Shin Bet will do everything within the framework of the law in order to obtain the confession from them," he explained.
"The fact is that in the vast majority of these cases, the interrogees do not talk, which increases the level of suspicion and the Shin Bet is required to deal with the so-called 'silent interrogee' and has to resort to various methods in order to extract information from them,” continued Kariv, who urged the leaders of Judea and Samaria to speak out against the phenomenon of Jewish terrorism.
"In 2018 there were 50 incidents of harming security forces after just 10 incidents in 2017. A fivefold increase in incidents of hilltop youth harming security forces, including rock-throwing, with a severely injured woman, a Border Policewoman who was hit by a rock, and I do not hear the leaders object to this. Why do the head of the Yesha Council, the head of the Binyamin Council and the head of the Samaria Council not stand up and shout and protest and condemn this?”
"When it’s not being denounced, it becomes a silent agreement, as if you support it. You may not actually support it, but where are you? Why do not you disapprove of the extreme phenomenon of the hilltop youth that harm the security forces?" wondered Kariv.
Kariv also responded to the claim that in the fight against what is defined as Jewish terrorism, there is considerable investment of resources and efforts, while the security forces appear helpless when it comes to investigating Arab rock terrorism. He said that the two units, the one that operates against Jewish terror and the one operating against Arab terror, do all they can to solve all the cases.
"Even when rocks are thrown by Arabs and there are Jewish victims, the units try to get as far as possible and solve the case. The only difference is that the units dealing with the Arab sector deal with much more serious attacks, such as the recent ones near Ofra and Givat Assaf. But I assume that if there are Jewish fatalities from Arab rock-throwing attacks, it will be dealt with in the same manner. This is a terrorist attack in every sense of the word, and we have to decipher it.”
Watch the full interview below (in Hebrew):