Earlier today, Israeli Police summoned Rabbi Bentzion “Bentzi” Gopstein – a hard right-wing follower of the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane – for questioning after Gopstein made public comments last week supporting church-burning and then doubled down on that incitement to violence in a Facebook post.
Above: Rabbi Bentzion "Bentzi" Gopstein (sometimes spelled "Gupstein)
Cops Summon Head Of Racist Right-Wing Neo-Kahanist Organization Lehava
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Earlier today, Israeli Police summoned Rabbi Bentzion “Bentzi” Gopstein – a hard right-wing follower of the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane – for questioning after Gopstein made public comments last week supporting church-burning and then doubled down on that incitement to violence in a Facebook post.
Gopstein, 46, heads the neo-Kahanist anti-miscegenation organization Lehava, which also supports converting Israel into a theocratic state run by the laws of the Torah – which, of course, in Lehava’s and Gopstein’s eyes can only be properly interpreted by Orthodox rabbis.
“The religious law is straightforward: One must burn idolatry," Gopstein wrote on Facebook after his oral remarks in support of church-burning were leaked to the Israeli media. Gopstein noted in that Facebook post that he expects the Government of Israel to make church-burning legal and the official policy of the goverment.
Despite a long history of similar incitement to violence against gays and religious minorities, Israel’s Internal Security Service (commonly known as the Shabak or the Shin Bet) recently found there is "insufficient evidence" to outlaw Lehava – even though Israel has a law that bans incitement to racism and violence.
Critics of the Shin Bet point out that the division of the Shin Bet which deals with Gopstein, Lehava and violent West Bank Jewish settlers is a dumping ground for less capable Shin Bet agents, and that in general, just like police, the army and the courts, the Shin Bet does not like to enforce the law against Jewish settlers and rabbis.
Indeed, there is mounting evidence that Israel Police intentionally disregarded warnings that a haredi terrorist, Yishai Shlissel, would attack this year’s Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade. Police appear to have ignored those warnings and also failed to follow the protection plan for the parade police themselves had drawn up. Those two “lapses” allowed Shlissel to stab six people, killing one of them, a 16-year-old girl.
This same type of failure to act to protect citizens whose beliefs or sexuality are disliked allegedly has played a large role in the failure, until this month, of police and the Shin Bet to catch the Jewish terrorists who have for several years been burning churches and mosques and committing other hate crimes.