When wildfires threatened Israel in late November, rhetoric linking arson to terrorism heated up. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said several times that they were set by arsonists and amounted to acts of terrorism. He and other ministers in his government, such as Aryeh Deri (interior) and Miri Regev (culture), threatened to revoke the residency or citizenship of those found guilty.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett described the blazes as “terrorism in every sense of the word.”
But now it appears that some of those claims may have been premature. Fire and security officials investigating the extinguished blazes have been much more cautious about drawing conclusions than Netanyahu and his government partners.
“In most areas you won’t find many things that say whether it was arson,” Ran Shelef, the Fire and Rescue Authority’s chief investigator, told the Jerusalem Post on Dec. 4, in the midst of ongoing investigations.
A day earlier, another investigator told Israel’s Channel 2: “We still don’t know anything. I wish I had a direction. I go to a place and get an insight — and then I go to another place and everything changes. … It is very difficult to investigate.”
At least 35 people were arrested on suspicion of committing arson or inciting others to do so, mostly Palestinians and the rest Arab Israelis. But by Dec. 3, only 10 remained in custody for suspected arson, with the rest released unconditionally, Channel 2 reported.
Only two suspects have been indicted, and one claims he was just burning garbage. And though no one doubts there was some arson involved, motives remain unclear.
Police officials have said they suspect arson in 29 of the 39 major fires, and in about one-third of the 90 total fires they investigated. There are no suspects in the large fires in Haifa and Zichron Yaakov, nor clear proof of arson. — jta