In an attempt to downplay the severity of nationalist crimes by Israeli citizens, the media refers to the offenses as ‘graffiti.’ Here are the facts – and it’s not just graffiti.

By Yossi Gurvitz for Yesh Din

A graffiti reading in Hebrew “Gentiles in the land are enemies”, seen on a Palestinian bus in the East Jerusalem nighboorhood of Beit Hanina, on March 24.

In recent weeks the “Hilltop Youth,” Israeli citizens in general, and their lobby in the Knesset and the media have been experiencing a sense of crisis. The events surrounding Yitzhar and the comments by a resident of the settlement justifying attacks on soldiers have put them on the defensive. In their responses in online comments and in sympathetic articles, they have presented the argument that “Price Tag” violence is about nothing more than some scribbled graffiti.

This claim is a propaganda lie for several reasons. Firstly, the media classifies nationalist violence by Israeli citizens – settlers and others – under the catch-all term “price tag.” In reality, price tag attacks account for just a small proportion of the overall phenomenon of attacks on Palestinians by Israeli civilians. “Price tag” or “mutual liability” are code words for such acts of violence directed against the IDF, the police, or – above all – against Palestinians – in response to actions by the Israeli security forces, such as the eviction of an outpost. These actions have quite a colorful style, and it is true that in many cases, the perpetrators leave behind their hallmark graffiti.

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However, ideological crime by Israeli civilians against Palestinians does not end with price tag attacks. Such crime occurs on an almost-daily basis. In order to illustrate this point, I asked Noah Cohen, Yesh Din’s information coordinator, to collate details of attacks on Palestinians which we have documented over the past year – from May 2013 through the end of April 2014. I will provide brief details below about these incidents.

Before beginning the catalog of events, however, two important comments. Firstly, Yesh Din is essentially a legal organization. We collect testimonies as a foundation for legal action. In some cases, Palestinians refuse to submit a complaint to the police, usually due to their lack of trust in the institution. In such cases, there was no legal response to the incident. In other cases, legal action was transferred to another attorney or organization; the result is that we have no information regarding the police processing of those files. Such cases are classified as “not processed by Yesh Din.”

Secondly, the 132 incidents detailed in this post are only those that came to Yesh Din’s attention. The list certainly does not include all the relevant incidents. Neither does it include minor incidents (such as cursing) or non-violent attacks (such as “merely” invading Palestinian land or dumping garbage in it). Nobody has any idea how many incidents involving attacks on Palestinians occurred in the relevant period. We attempted to obtain this information from the Israel Police, but were informed that no comprehensive figures exist on this subject. Accordingly, we must assume that the actual number of incidents is higher – though we cannot determine how much higher. If an incident was already featured in the blog, I provide a link to the relevant post.

So what can we learn from this list? We have 132 incidents of ideological crime committed by Israeli civilians against Palestinians over the period of May 2013 through April 2014. Only in 13 cases did the perpetrators write slogans in the area – less than 10 percent of the incidents. Moreover, in nine of these 13 cases, the slogans appeared alongside the torching of vehicles or buildings. In another case, the slogans appeared on a home in the village of Sinjil, which had been set on fire two months earlier.

Khaled Abed a-Rahman Dar Khalil inspects the damage inside his home, which was torched by Jewish settlers, Sinjil, West Bank, November 14, 2013. Five children were treated for smoke inhalation. (Photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

So when discussing ideological crime by Israelis, we should recall the following facts:

1. In the vast majority of cases, the incident is far more serious than graffiti and involves damage to property or physical assault.

2. In cases that do involve graffiti, this often accompanies an act of arson, and in many instances the target of the torching is an inhabited home. Such attacks fall very close to the definition of terrorism, if not within it.

3. In most incidents of torching – of which we have documented 28, including the torching of a chicken coop in which thousands of chicks were burned alive – as well as attempted arson, no graffiti was left alongside the torched building.

4. The vast majority of incidents of ideological crime committed by Israelis falls under the category of agricultural terrorism: attacks on farmers, farm property, and trees. We documented 77 such attacks. The purpose of these attacks is not to convey a message to the IDF but to persuade Palestinian farmers that continuing to farm their land is dangerous and unsustainable and that they should relinquish their land. As we demonstrated in a previous post, this tactic works.

5. In 41 cases, i.e. more than a quarter of the incidents, the offense was a physical attack on a Palestinian person, sometimes accompanied by an attempted attack on property.

6. The main reason for the closure of cases is investigative failure: 47 of the cases have been closed, and in the vast majority (39) this was on the grounds of “offender unknown” (“OU” in the table below) – in other words, the police were unable to locate suspects. In four additional cases the reason was “insufficient evidence” (“IE” in the table below). Accordingly, in 88 percent of cases closed, the reason was the incompetence of the Judea and Samaria District Police. Anyone who is familiar with Yesh Din’s statistics, particularly regarding agricultural attacks, will not be surprised by this statistic.

That said, let’s devote a few words to the topic of graffiti. When slogans are daubed abroad, on a synagogue or Jewish cemetery for example, the Israeli media does not regard the incident as mere graffiti, but as a hate crime, and in many cases this is indeed the case. The objective of a hate crime is to terrorize the attacked group and to convey the message that just as they reached them in order to write the graffiti, so they can be reached with a firebomb. In the case of ideological crimes committed by Israeli civilians, when the graffiti accompanies arson attacks, the message is particularly clear. A distinction should be made between graffiti and most of the other actions, which are designed to dispossess Palestinians from their land.

Read also: ‘Settler violence: It comes with the territory’

This is our data. The US State Department recently found that Israeli civilians committed 399 hate crimes against Palestinians in 2013, some of which occurred within the boundaries of the State of Israel. Again, it is more than possible that these figures do not represent all incidents.

So let’s stop this talk about graffiti. Comments of the sort are no more than an excuse and an attempt by those who support these crimes to downplay the gravity of the offenses and divert attention from the actual crimes. This excuse is spread thanks to the lazy thoughtlessness of journalists.

And now – the complete list for your review.

Written by Yossi Gurvitz in his capacity as a blogger for Yesh Din, Volunteers for Human Rights. A version of this post was first published on Yesh Din’s blog.