BUSTED: Supect Held in August Tel Aviv Gay Center Attack

A Jewish-American West Bank settler currently in police custody in Israel has emerged as a leading suspect in the horrific attack on a GLBT community center in Tel Aviv which left two people dead, dozens injured and rocked the seaside city known for its tolerance and openness.

Indeed, Israeli police revealed to local press that Yaakov Teitel (above), a 35 year-old religious extremist originally from the United States was arrested last month during a major operation by the police and the Shin Bet, Israel’s intenral secret service.

According to reports, Teitel — a father of four — is the mastermind behind a series of shockingly violent attacks against Palestinians, leftist Israelis and “messianic Jews” (AKA “Jews for Jesus) that have left a handful dead and injured. 

Teitel has been known to local security officials for almost a decade and was actually arrested in 2000 on suspician of engaging in terror attacks.  He was released for lack of evidence — a move many are calling a major blunder by Israeli security forces.

Beyond the anti-Arab terro, Teitel has both been linked to the August Gay Center attack, and apprently — while in custody — confessed to master-minding the attack.  Despite the confession, police have not yet formally charged him with the hate-crime owing to lack of sufficient evidence.

Nonetheless, what is known about Teitel is chilling.

Over the past decade, he has confessed to the following terrorist-styled attacks:

• + The 1997 murder of an east Jerusalem taxi driver
• + The 1997 murder of a Palestinian shepherd south of Mount Hebron
• + Placing an explosive device in the Ramallah-adjacent settlement of Eli in 2006 – the device was      found and disarmed safely
• + Placing an explosive device near a Beit Shemesh monetary in 2007, which resulted in one Palestinian injured
• + A 2007 explosion which took place in the Ramot neighborhood in Jerusalem – a police cruiser was severely damaged, but no injuries were reported
• + Hurling explosives at a police car in June 2007 – no injuries or damage were reported
• + Sending a parcel bomb to a messianic family residing in Ariel, which resulted in a 15-year-old boy suffering severe injuries
• + Placing a pipe bomb near Prof. Zeev Sternhell’s Jerusalem home in September of 2008 – Sternhell was lightly wounded.

Florida-born Teitel has lived off and on in Israel/West Bank for 20 years during which time he was able to smuggle numerous guns into the country from the United States — weapons which were used in his myriad attacks.  Many (see above) were captured during the raid on his home last month.

Despite not yet being formally charged with the Tel Aviv Gay Center attack, Teitel has a long paper trail linking him to homophobic attacks. 

According to a November 1st release from the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance – a GLBT support center in the capital — the police successfully linked Teitel to a bomb with the words “Sodomites Out” written on it, found eight days before the Jerusalem Pride March in 2006. They also found flyers nearby entitled “Death to Sodomites,” with instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails and other improvised weapons to be used against LGBTQ people. The flyer also promised NIS 20,000 to anyone causing the death of “one of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.” It was signed by “The Red Hand of Redemption,” the same title used in the flyers praising the Tel Aviv attack.

Open House director Yonatan Gher has made it clear that although his group will wait for a formal charge against Teitel from the police, they are not waiting in silence. Moreover, given Teitel’s long record of hate-based crimes, they expect Israel’s political and security leaders to respond to the Teitel arrest with appropriate gravitas.

“We expect to hear renunciations of Teitel’s shocking actions from a wide spectrum of the Israeli population, from the political right and left, from religious and secular populations, from LGBTQ and straight people,” Gher said in a statement today. “Let us unite against these hateful actions and respond to them through the love and acceptance of the other.”

Clearly this story is fluid and just beginning. We expect to hear — and report — much more.