Morton A. Klein, president of The Zionist Organization of America issued the following statement:
It is inappropriate to rush to cast blame on Jews for the fire at an Arab home in Duma in last week in view of the minimal, contradictory, and questionable evidence reported thus far — and in view of the numerous instances in which Arabs have fabricated attacks or blamed Jews for Arab violence against other Arabs.
A full investigation should be done to determine responsibility. And of course, whoever is responsible for this attack – whether Jew or Arab – should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
The fire in Duma, in which a 18-month-old Palestinian Arab, Ali Dawabsha perished shows indications of being an intra-Arab attack used to frame Jews. As with similar incidents, including those discussed below, the fire is now being used as a device to incite Arab terrorist attacks on innocent Jewish people.
Evidence however, raises strong suspicions that the fire last week was the continuation of an 18-year-old feud between two Arab clans in Duma.
The perpetrators first, are purported to have set fire to an empty house next door to the Dawabsha’s home. Yet, a burning house would likely have attracted attention, so as not to have left enough time for the scenario that is alleged by Palestinian Arabs, in regards to the second house, to have occurred.
It is alleged that after setting fire to the first empty neighboring house, Israeli perpetrators entered the protected Dawabsha home and stayed there, insisting that the family remain in the home when setting this second house on fire.
Notably, the two homes set on fire were in the center of a hostile Arab village – an unlikely choice for Israelis entering from outside the village. It would have been extremely difficult for Israeli Jews to reach and then to depart from the center of a hostile Arab village without being detected.
Further, the Hebrew words scrawled at the scene were written in the style of Arab calligraphy – not in the form of Hebrew lettering. The words also appear to reflect an Arab terrorist mindset – which is focuses on vengeance and the avenging of Allah. The written graffiti words were: “Revenge the King Mashiach (Messiah)” scribbled with a Chabad crown. These are odd words and a peculiar symbol for a supposed Israeli “right wing terrorist to write.”
Chabad is, in fact, a peace-loving non-political religious outreach group. In view of the facts, we should not presume that Israeli Jews were responsible for the fires in Duma. Instead, we should await a proper investigation before jumping to any conclusions.
If it turns out that Jewish individuals were responsible, those individuals should be arrested, prosecuted, and punished to the full extent of the law. However, if this incident turns out to be another “blame the Jews” Arab hoax, the facts should be broadcast with the same fanfare that blame was precipitously cast on Israeli Jews.
Sadly, the attention paid to the fire in Duma lies in stark contrast to the lack of attention paid to countless Arab terrorist attacks and attempts on innocent Israeli men, women, and children daily. Arab terrorists have murdered one hundred seventy-seven (177) Jewish children in recent decades (list available here); murdered thousands of Jewish people, and maimed over 10,000 Jews during the past 15 years. We scarcely hear a word about this.
A grieving Jewish mother, whose daughter Adelle Biton was murdered by Arab terrorists noted, “I don’t recall [President Rivlin] calling for a public protest when Adelle was attacked. Something is wrong here.”
Some Examples of Arabs blaming Jews for Arab v. Arab violence:
Just this past Sunday (August 2, 2015), an Arab resident of Lod, Imad Abu Sharikh, was caught fabricating an alleged attack by “Jewish extremists.” Abu Sharikh was beaten by a gang of Arab youths as part of a family feud- but falsely told the police that three “right-wing extremists” attacked him when he was heading to the mosque, shouting “filthy Arab, expel all the Arabs!” The media promptly spread Abu Sharikh’s false report and picture of his battered figure – despite the fact that this false report quickly unraveled, and the Arab youths responsible for attacking Abu Sharikh were arrested.
Hamas terrorists have a long history of using Arab women and children as human shields, and blaming Israel for misfired Hamas rockets that landed in schoolyards.
Some Examples of fabricated attacks:
The history of fabricated attacks goes back at least to the Nazi era.
In 1939, the Nazis invented a pretext for invading Poland and started World War II by staging an attack on a German radio station and blaming the attack on Polish aggression (the Gleiwitz incident). To convince the world that Poles were responsible for the attack, the Nazis broadcast an anti-German message from the radio station in Polish. They dressed a German Catholic farmer in a Polish uniform, murdered him, and left him at the radio station looking like a Pole who had attacked the station. The Nazis also dressed Dachau concentration camp prisoners in Polish uniforms, and set fires which they blamed on the Poles, in the same manner.
Palestinian Arab terrorists have repeatedly borrowed from this Nazi playbook, staging and fabricating incidents to blame on (non-existent) Jewish “extremists” and Israel.
The infamous al Durrah libel is a prime example: Anti-Israel propagandists falsely portrayed Jamal al-Durrah’s axe and knife wounds scars from a previous Arab gang attack as bullet wounds caused by the IDF, and broadcast a falsified video taken by an Arab cameraman to claim that Jamal’s son, 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah was killed. The video omitted footage showing that Muhammed was moving and alive after he had supposedly expired. There was no blood at the scene.
Propagandists also falsely reported that that the al-Durrahs were the “target of fire from the Israeli positions,” when in fact, IDF investigators concluded that Israeli soldiers probably did not shoot the al-Durrahs. The editors of the France 2 television station that broadcast the false al-Durrah story admitted years later that it was uncertain who fired the shots. Media analyst Philip Karsenty stated that the entire incident was staged by Arabs, and accused France 2 of fraudulent reporting. Karsenty prevailed on appeal after France 2 sued Karsenty for libel.
Palestinian Arabs used the al-Durrah libel as a pretext for murdering and maiming scores of Jewish people in terrorist attacks in Israel and France. In still other videos, Arab Palestinians play dead while the press films them. Arab Palestinians get up and walk away afterwards. In some of the videos, the “dead” are noticeably moving about and laughing under their supposed shrouds. No blood or other evidence that anyone was killed is present.