2 Arabs confess to starting wildfires in Israel

Police chief Roni Alsheich says arson attacks are nothing new, says cops prepared to treat cases as terrorism

ed note–besides the obvious, which is Israel’s legendary and autonomic use of torture in getting ‘confessions that in fact are not real, there is an even bigger question that needs to be asked in all of this, and yes, unfortunately, it deals with religion, faith, and spirituality…

The world is/has been told on a minute by minute basis that the Jews are God’s chosen people, favored above all others, the apple of his eye, and that no harm should come to them. To prove this (we are told by Jewish lore) the Jewish god, Yahweh, did all sorts of neat stuff for them in order to save them from disaster. He sent the plagues to Egypt…He parted the Red Sea so they could cross over to the Holy Land and begin their rampage, rape, and pillage…He led them with a pillar of fire by night and a sandstorm by day. He fed them with Mannah from heaven and quenched their thirst with water from a rock that had been struck by Moses himself…

But where is Yahweh now, as Israel is going up in smoke? Vacationing in the Caribbean, away from tv and the internet and knowing nothing about what is taking place? Didn’t he make the ‘desert bloom’ when the Jews began ‘reclaiming’ and ‘redeeming’ the land of their forefathers? Wasn’t he there in all the great battles taking place in ’48, ’67, ’73, etc?

The obvious point here is those delusional types, whether they be Jews or their lickspittle Christian lackeys, who have bought into all this ‘God’s chosen people’ business and in the process have lent their support towards human suffering that simply has not been witnessed in this scale since the beginning of history need to check into the detox center and wash their systems clean of the Jtosis that has rotted their hearts, minds and souls. Israel is burning, and whether it was ‘AY-rabs’ who did it or whether it is simply the result of an unforgiving Mother Nature, the fact is that ‘GAAAAWD’ obviously cares not a wit whether the entire Jewish state burns to the ground, no more than GAAAAAWD cared when the Romans destroyed the Jewish state in 70 AD, leaving–exactly as Jesus Christ predicted–‘not one stone upon another’.

Times of Israel

Two Israeli Arabs arrested on suspicion of deliberately starting brush fires have confessed to the crimes, police reportedly told the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.

The suspects were said to from the Israeli Arab towns of Umm al-Fahm and Deir Hanna in northern Israel, the Hebrew-language Ynet news website reported. The report did not specify which fires the two admitted to igniting or offer details on the suspects.

While many of the fires that ravaged towns and cities nationwide since Tuesday have been caused by negligence, officials say at least some of the blazes were started by nationalistically motivated Arab arsonists and have vowed to crack down on the perpetrators.

On Sunday, officials offered assurances that the wave of wildfires that swept across the country over the past six days had mostly come to an end, at least for the time being, but fresh blazes were later reported in northern Israel.

At least 35 people have been arrested since Thursday on suspicion of setting fires or inciting others to do so. More than 15 were Palestinians arrested by the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security service, an army spokesperson said. At least 10 of those held are Israeli Arabs, according to Hebrew media reports. Police did not offer a detailed breakdown of how many were being detained for incitement and how many for arson.

Police chief Roni Alsheich said Sunday that there had been similar arson attacks in the past and that they should be considered acts of terror, Army Radio reported.

“If setting the fire was deliberate it is definitely terror,” Alsheich said during a visit to the West Bank settlement of Halamish, where a fire destroyed 18 homes on Friday night. “By the way, that is nothing new, there have been arson incidents in the past. The concentration of a relatively large number of days, and the number of incidents and the weather conditions, brought about these results but there is nothing new and there were incidents like this in the past.”

Alsheich said the security services are equipped to deal with terror and hinted that Israel was prepared to employ more stringent measures if necessary.

“We have good tools for dealing with terror — we haven’t yet taken advantage of them; we will review things and if we think that the measures are lacking we will demand them… There are sufficient measures in the Israeli book of laws.”

Earlier Sunday, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said there was “proof” that 17 of 110 recorded wildfires were caused by arsonists, and authorities “were still investigating the other incidents.”

Authorities estimate that since Tuesday, some 130,000 dunams (32,124 acres) have been destroyed, approximately 30 percent more than a major blaze in the forests around Haifa six years ago.

Haifa city officials said Saturday that this week’s fires torched some 28,000 dunams (6,900 acres) of land in the city since Thursday.

At least 60,000 of the city’s residents were evacuated Thursday while firefighters battled to contain a blaze that had entered a dozen of the city’s neighborhoods from the nearby Carmel Forest.

Most had returned home by Sunday morning, but an estimated 1,600 residents remained without homes. Between 400 and 530 apartments were said to be completely destroyed by the flames. Dozens of homes in other locales have also been damaged by separate wildfires during the wave.

It was not immediately clear that the motive of all the arsonists was terrorism. Israeli security officials on Saturday night gave preliminary indications that weather conditions were the prime cause of the initial wave of fires. From Wednesday and into the weekend, security officials and politicians indicated that arson was being investigated in some cases.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday there was “no doubt” some of the fires were started deliberately. “There is a price to pay for the crimes committed, there is a price to pay for arson terrorism,” he said.

The Magen David Adom rescue service reported Saturday that among the 133 people treated by the organization for fire-related injuries, one was seriously hurt and three others were moderately injured.

Throughout the week, firefighting equipment from the US, Russia, Turkey, Greece, France, Spain, Canada and the Palestinian Authority joined Israeli crews in dumping tons of water and retardants on the fires around Israel and the West Bank.