Transcript [00:00] Jewish citizens of Judea and Samaria, [00:02] also known as the West Bank, [00:04] who [00:05] are attacking Arabs in those areas. And [00:09] the criticisms that are leveled are that [00:11] Israel isn't doing enough to tackle it. [00:13] What can you tell us? [00:14] >> I can tell you that the Israel police [00:15] invest a lot of resources into [00:19] investigating these incidents. We've [00:21] opened up a joint task force with [00:23] different agencies so that [00:26] there's no red tape. We're all together [00:28] in the same room with the same purpose [00:30] that extremist violence, no matter what [00:33] side of the table it's on, is dealt with [00:35] properly. [00:36] We don't condone any violence against [00:38] any innocent civilians. But in this area [00:40] of Judea and Samaria, it's very complex. [00:42] Say a violent incident takes place in an [00:45] Arab village that's believed to have [00:47] taken place at the hands of Israelis. [00:50] We, the Israel police, need to [00:52] coordinate entry with the IDF because [00:54] these areas can be very violent to [00:56] security forces at the hands of Arabs. [00:58] They can throw rocks at them. They can [01:00] throw Molotov cocktails at them. And we [01:02] need armored vehicles to get in. We need [01:04] to wear bulletproof vest to get in. We [01:05] need heavy We need our machine guns to [01:07] get in. Why? Because the threat in these [01:09] areas is very real against security [01:11] forces. Every day there's attacks [01:14] against security forces there. But [01:15] nonetheless, we go because it's our duty [01:18] to investigate. And when we arrive to [01:20] these locations, many times there's no [01:22] cooperation from the community members [01:25] that are there. I had one incident where [01:29] they claimed that an American [01:30] Palestinian [01:32] was murdered at the hand of Jewish [01:34] Israelis. [01:35] And [01:37] the Israel police weren't doing enough [01:38] to investigate it. And so I got a call [01:41] from [01:43] I won't say who because I don't want to [01:44] get into specifics, but I got I got a [01:46] few calls last [01:47] And I had to explain to them, "Listen to [01:50] me. We're doing everything possible more [01:52] than that. Just to give you an [01:54] understanding, nobody filed a claim [01:56] nobody filed a police report. We [01:59] proactively opened the investigation [02:01] based on social media reports to see [02:03] what happens here. [02:05] When we arrived to these locations and [02:07] we asked to see the body, they refused [02:09] to give us the body for autopsy. So, how [02:11] do I prove that there's a body even? How [02:12] do I prove that a murder took place? [02:14] It's not a matter of Jewish, Arab, [02:16] Palestinian, Muslim, all these different [02:18] things. Why especially? Because some of [02:21] these investigators are Muslims. Some of [02:23] these investigators are Christians. [02:25] There It's not Jews only and whatever [02:27] and we're not investigating it just [02:28] because it's Jew. That's not the reality [02:31] here [02:32] regardless of what social media wants to [02:33] tell you and all these lies. But, [02:35] there's another factor that I've noticed [02:37] taking place [02:39] and that's the distortion of the truth. [02:41] So, headlines will come out right away [02:44] saying that Jews set fire to a Christian [02:48] church in Judea and Samaria. [02:50] Now, that's a big headline and that's a [02:52] very big claim. But, once you start [02:54] looking into the claim you say, "Wait a [02:57] second. First of all, it's not an active [02:58] church. We're talking about historical [03:00] ruins. [03:01] Not less important, but let's be clear [03:03] on on what we're talking about." [03:05] And then we look at the location and you [03:06] say, "Wait a second. The historical [03:09] ruins is up here on the hill and it's [03:11] actually the the place that caught fire [03:13] was the shrubs down below it." [03:15] Adjacent. Okay, still important. There's [03:17] a fire that took place. We need to [03:18] investigate to see if it was arson. [03:21] Wait a second. It was Israelis that [03:24] called it in that there's a fire. [03:26] And they're working there to put out the [03:28] fire. The footage that we saw from [03:31] that we collected in the investigation [03:32] from cell phone footage [03:34] was that it was Israelis trying to put [03:36] out this fire. [03:37] And [03:39] you then speak to the media and you tell [03:41] them all these different things and they [03:43] don't change the headlines and they [03:44] don't change the facts. Luckily, we had [03:46] a really great and we still have a [03:48] really great friend in the US Embassy [03:50] and the our US Ambassador to Israel Mike [03:53] B [03:55] And I spoke with his advisor and I [03:56] showed him and I gave him the pictures [03:58] and everything. And he brought it to to [04:00] the ambassador and the ambassador put [04:01] out a tweet correcting it. [04:03] Because he understands the value of the [04:05] truth. [04:06] But you understand that all these [04:08] headlines once they go out, the damage [04:10] is done and nobody cares about repairing [04:11] it.
