jerusalem | After the news broke in Israel that a West Bank settler was charged with murdering two Palestinians in 1997 and bombing the home of a prominent Israeli professor last year, many Israelis were asking why it took police so long.
On Nov. 1, Israeli authorities lifted a gag order on the arrest of Yaakov “Jack” Teitel, a 37-year-old U.S. immigrant living in the settlement of Shvut Rachel, on a variety of charges dating back to the murders of a Palestinian cab driver and shepherd.
Teitel is also charged with planting several explosive devices in 2006 and 2007 directed at Arabs, Christians and police; sending a bomb hidden in a Purim gift basket to a messianic Jewish family that left a 15-year-old boy seriously injured; and planting a pipe bomb in 2008 near the Jerusalem home of Zeev Sternhell, a prominent left-wing academic and Peace Now activist.
Some Israeli commentators suggested that had Teitel limited his attacks to Palestinians, Israeli authorities would have left the investigations into the attacks on Palestinians grow cold.
“Teitel’s fatal error was turning on other Jews,” Ha’aretz columnist Gideon Levy wrote Nov. 2. “Had he been satisfied with acts of murder against the Palestinian population, he would never have been caught.”
Teitel had been arrested in 2000 upon entering Israel, after intelligence reports suggested that he had committed the 1997 murders, but he was released due to lack of evidence. Despite suspicions about his role in the murders, Teitel was granted a license to carry a handgun.
On Oct. 7, Teitel was arrested by the Israel Police’s YAMAM elite counter-terror unit while he was in the Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof hanging up posters supporting last summer’s attack on a gay and lesbian club in Tel Aviv, according to reports from the joint police–Shin Bet operation. Police said Teitel confessed to the 1997 murders and several other attacks.
Police officials said Teitel had been under surveillance for a time but had been careful to conceal his activities and refrain from perpetrating attacks while under surveillance. After the more recent attacks, authorities said they were able to ascertain a pattern linking Teitel to the crimes dating back to 1997.
“He is like a serial killer. This guy was a Jewish terrorist who targeted different types of people,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. “He was deeply involved in terrorism on all different levels.”
Originally from Florida, Teitel made aliyah in 2000, though he moved back and forth between Israel and the United States over the past 20 years, according to reports.
In Shvut Rachel, a community of 120 families about 28 miles north of Jerusalem, residents said they were shocked by the allegations, saying Teitel and his wife, Rivka, kept mostly to themselves. They have four children under the age of 6.
Police said that Teitel, who never learned Hebrew, became a weapons expert and that a search of his Shvut Rachel home turned up a cache of weapons and explosives.
On Nov. 3, Teitel’s neighbor in the settlement, Yossi Shpinoza, was rearrested on suspicion of involvement with Teitel’s alleged crimes, security forces said. Shpinoza was already arrested about two weeks ago after his association with Teitel came to light, but was released after only a few hours.
Teitel’s father, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Betar Illit, reportedly served for many years as a dentist in the U.S. Marines, and officials said it was possible that Teitel learned about weapons and explosives during his time on military bases.
He allegedly created names for himself in flyers and other documents, reportedly calling himself the “Red Hand for Redemption” in one.
Teitel’s attorney, Adi Keidar, said at a news conference Nov. 1 that Teitel is “mentally unstable” and believes Divine visions guided his acts.
In Israel, some used the news of the arrest as an opportunity to condemn Jewish settlements in the West Bank as a haven for extremists. However, supporters of the settlements called such characterizations unfair.
“Acts of the kind allegedly committed by Yaakov Teitel are grave, prohibited and unacceptable,” Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements, said. “Any person of conscience in Israel must rise up in indignation against such acts, as well as against any despicable attempt to use them to gain political capital by blaming an entire community that is not connected — and is in fact vehemently opposed — to such actions.”
The arrest came just days after Israel’s commemorations of the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing extremist.
The Jerusalem Post contributed to this report.