G. Van Gelder has been fighting non-stop for justice for Amiram Ben Uliel. Arutz Sheva has posted several articles on the subject he sent to us. New developments have made this one especially relevant.
-Sixty rabbis are signed on an advertisement in the August 14, 2025 Besheva newspaper demanding a retrial for Amiram Ben Uliel after recordings went public in which the head of the Jewish Division of the Shabak is heard calling to arrest "settlers" for trumped up reasons. The ad promises that this is only the first group of signatures, promising that there are more to come. Ben Uliel is serving a life sentence for a crime he only admitted to under torture and with no evidence corroborating his confession. Read the story in English here.
-A comprehensive investigation has shattered another of the most persistent narratives surrounding Israeli-Palestinian Arab tensions. The Regavim Movement's recently published 125-page report, "False Flags and Real Agendas," presents damning evidence that the international campaign known as "settler violence" rests on a foundation of deliberate misrepresentation and manufactured outrage.
The findings are staggering in their scope and implications. After analyzing the United Nations database—the primary source for international media coverage and commentary on this issue—researchers discovered that 98% of incidents classified as "settler violence" bore no connection to actual settlers or violence of any kind. Lawful, peaceful, supervised visits by Jews to the Temple Mount were systematically categorized alongside genuine acts of aggression. Normal, non-violent activities became evidence of extremism through bureaucratic sleight of hand.
The methodology behind this deception reveals its calculated nature. Most reports originated from Arab sources without independent verification, creating an echo chamber of allegations that international bodies accepted without scrutiny, as they do Hamas statistics. The result has been a coordinated campaign that, in the words of Regavim Director General Meir Deutsch, "draws an outrageous moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas in the name of a false 'balance' between so-called extremists on both sides."
Deutsch further stated: “For years, we’ve been told about a ‘serious phenomenon’ of 'settler violence', but we’ve never been shown the data to prove it. The time has come to tear away the mask of lies and reveal the truth. After years in which there was no pushback against this false narrative, Regavim is presenting the facts—and they must be seen, heard, and internalized in Israel and around the world.”
To complement Regavim’s achievement, and almost concurrently, Yotam Eyal, head of the Legal Forum for the State of Israel, published a four-part article on the Deep State, citing examples from its earliest days and outlining its various methods of operation. It required supreme courage, and the timing could not have been better.
To complete the picture, the legal aid organization Honenu has been battling the Deep State for twenty-five years. Most of its cases are archived on its website. It shows that hundreds of nationalist Zionists have suffered from unscrupulous actions without protection. The Shin Bet eventually achieved its objective by incarcerating Amiram Ben Uliel in solitary confinement. You might ask: Wasn’t regular jail enough? No. The plan was to create a “violent settler” terrorist figure in solitary confinement to counterbalance the very large number of Arab terrorists in Israeli prisons.
To convict Ben Uliel, those in charge committed numerous offenses that were originally meant to protect innocent citizens from being framed for crimes they did not commit or to prevent imminent terror attacks. Once, judges looked for evidence; at that trial, it seemed that Israeli citizens living in Judea and Samaria were put in a different category—making it permissible to harm them with impunity in the name of duty without evidence. Here is the story:
On July 31, 2015, two arson attacks occurred in the Arab village of Duma. Residents of Duma were well aware that the Dawabshe cousins had a history of longstanding hostilities and were now retaliating one against the other. The Shin Bet took advantage of this situation.
They allegedly knew who was responsible and orchestrated Hebrew graffiti with Chabad slogans to ensure the media and Deep State officials would reach a predetermined conclusion.
But they made a glaring error: many Israelis know that Chabad has no history of daubing their famous slogans on Arab homes. Was this a misguided attempt at satire—or simple ignorance by secular agents who view all religious Jews with peyot and large yarmulkes as indistinguishable?
The Duma Affair may have been in revenge for the largely forgotten case of Chaim Perlman, a "settler" who embarrassed the Shin Bet in July 2010 when the courts freed him from unlawful imprisonment. Understanding what happened to Perlman—and how the Shabak (Shin Bet) aimed to make him a sacrificial figure—helps explain some of the strange narrative surrounding these so-called “Jewish terrorists.”
Amiram Ben Uliel was the last remaining target after the Shin Bet failed to convict other "settlers" it arrested. Incarcerating "settlers" seemed to be an objective within certain units of the Shin Bet.
The Shin Bet required a confession and this could only be achieved through extreme torture as Ben Uliel denied the accusations. For this level of torture, the approval of then-Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein was required. This torture, unheard of in democracies (unless there is a "ticking time-bomb" and gaining information that way could prevent immediate terror, certainly not the case here), would continue without end until Amiram realized that confessing to the false narrative that the torturers demanded was the only way to stop the pain being inflicted on him beginning at 11:45 p.m.
The torture stopped immediately after he confessed at 7:00 a.m. It should be clarified that this extreme form of torture was initiated after 17 days of “regular” torture—which had already been used on other "settlers". They had to be released when they resolutely withstood the pain, as he did. The suffering inflicted on Amiram between 11:45 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. was of a different and far more severe nature, and seemingly never-ending.
Much has changed between the time of Chaim Perlman and the date of Amiram Ben Uliel’s conviction. The standard of justice deteriorated and the court actually accepted the confession knowing it was elicited through torture, another unheard of phenomenon in democracies.
These latest developments may create the impression that the problems uncovered by Regavim and others are recent phenomena, when in fact the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria have been harassed and persecuted for decades.
Evelyn Gordon authored an article many decades ago in which she wrote about a pattern of events. Young "settlers" arrested for some “violent” actions are brought to court. The judge releases them all claiming that there is no evidence to connect these young men to the charges. Gordon makes it clear that the Shin Bet has not failed in achieving their objective when those arrested are released, because the objective was never justice.
The objective was to demonize and defame the settlers and that was achieved. Biden's sanctions are the proof. They were arrested with screaming headlines, and released silently when the truth emerged. Over time and after dozens of such events the impression was purposely created that there were two types of Jewish citizens, some peace loving and reasonable, and others extremists like the "settlers" or more recently the Hilltop Youth, who allegedly hate Arabs, daub price tag graffiti and want to murder Arabs.
It has now been confirmed by the revealed recordings, as many had surmised, that the Jewish Division arrests and interrogates "settlers" without any evidence, tortures them with the objective of obtaining a false confession. Judges accept a confession as the best form of evidence, but with no interest in how the confession was obtained. These judges are often picked for their ideology which over the years becomes attuned to the ideology of Aharon Barak and his followers. Career advancement and self preservation being their uppermost objectives.
The following short article appeared in July 2010 mentioning a decision made in 1998:
Disband Leftist Justice Ministry Team
NGOs meeting Attorney General to claim team headed by Shai Nitzan hounds Jewish communities.
Gil Ronen, Arutz Sheva 7/7/2010
Three human rights NGOs will meet Attorney General Yehudah Weinstein Thursday to ask for the disbanding of what they say is a biased team in the Ministry of Justice. The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, the Organization for Human Rights in Judea and Samaria and Regavim want a special team headed by Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan to cease operation
The Team for Law Enforcement in the Territories, as the crew is called, has continued operating despite a 1998 decision by then-Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein to disband it. The team has held meetings on a monthly basis under Nitzan's leadership.
The Subcommittee on Judea and Samaria in the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee discussed the team's continued operation in December and reached the conclusion that the team was ideologically motivated and that its actions were directed almost solely against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria and other nationalists.
Nitzan admitted to the subcommittee that his team tended to follow up on complaints lodged by leftist human rights NGOs while ignoring complaints by nationalist human rights groups.
Aleph, AKA, the Chief of the Jewish Division, was recorded describing his normal practice of arresting "settlers" without any evidence. After his voice was heard discussing illegal actions with Commander Avishai Mualem on the public broadcaster Kan, Aleph suspended himself from his position and apologized. Note how he protected himself by not allowing his name to be used and choosing his own punishment.
Then Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar came forward offering to examine the matter. These people never pay for their crimes, the worst that will happen to them is that they will retire early. The courts will find the means to excuse their crimes because the courts supported their methods. If there are honest, ethical judges, let them speak up now in support of those innocents who are incarcerated for life.
The courage demonstrated by organizations like Regavim, journalists like Yotam Eyal, and legal advocates like those at Honenu, in exposing these abuses deserves recognition and support. Their work has illuminated a web of institutional bias that has operated in darkness for far too long. Media organizations must scrutinize their sources and challenge narratives that rest on unverified allegations. Most importantly, the Israeli justice system must restore its commitment to evidence-based prosecution and equal treatment under law.
After decades of treating "settlers" with cruelty and framing them using falsehoods in order to convince the world that ‘we too have terrorists and extremists’, the Jewish state has experienced amazing miracles while also suffering foreign-financed protests meant to influence and then to overturn a democratic election. This was followed by a horrendous massacre, war and the suffering of the hostages, and now false accusations of genocide and starvation of our enemies.
One accusation is internal, the one criticizing the justice system. Here, President Herzog can show the world that justice prevails in Israel, and exonerate or at least provide Amiram Ben Uliel with the opportunity to prove his innocence in front of impartial judges.
As recent investigations reveal, the systematic demonization of "settlers" serves broader political objectives and those objectives threaten Israel's very existence. Only through confronting these injustices directly and demanding accountability from all involved institutions can the truth prevail over manufactured false narratives designed to undermine Israel's democracy and legitimacy.