Did police downplay threats against Ayman Odeh?

Haggai Matar By Haggai Matar February 12, 2016 | Edit
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When Joint List head Ayman Odeh received a death threat and police arrested a young settler, police strangely issued a press release about threats against Avigdor Liberman — from a month earlier.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Photo by Activestills.org)
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Photo by Activestills.org)

Something very strange has been happening here over the past few days. On Thursday at 1:56 p.m., the Jewish-Arab Hadash party published a report on its Arabic Facebook page, in which it claimed that a settler had been arrested for threatening Hadash Chairman and head of the Joint List, Ayman Odeh.

The police spokesperson, which releases numbous press releases every day and keeps the public appraised of its work via social media, did not publish a word on the incident. Several journalists, including myself, asked the spokesperson for details on the suspect’s arrest. We all received the same answer: “Response to follow.”

And then the strangest thing happened: within two hours of Hadash’s post, the police spokesperson sent a message to reporters (some of which also appeared on the Israeli Police Twitter account) announcing that a Palestinian who threatened Avigdor Liberman had been indicted.

A look at the message revealed that the threats against Liberman were over a month old, that they had already been covered by the press, that the suspect had been arrested three weeks ago, and that he was indicted last week.

None of that prevented the same media outlets from publishing the threats against Liberman for a second time.

Only on Friday, and after I asked time and again, did the spokesperson send the following statement:

There is indeed an investigation into the issue of threats against MK Ayman Odeh in the Hebron area by the West Bank police, during which an Israeli minor who resides in one of the settlements in Judea and Samaria and who was released with a number of court-ordered restrictions including a restraining order. Meanwhile the investigation continues.

This message was sent to me personally and was not published by the spokesperson, nor did it appear on its Twitter. Interesting.

This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.

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Haggai Matar

Haggai Matar is an award-winning Israeli journalist and political activist, in addition to serving as the executive director of “972 – Advancement of Citizen Journalism,” the nonprofit that publishes +972 Magazine.

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