Police Investigation: Kfar Darom Protestors Did Not Throw Lye
By Hillel Fendel Arutz 7 Sunday, January 22, 2006

Many protestors at the Kfar Darom expulsion in Gush
Katif were indicted based on reports that caustic soda was thrown at
policemen, but the latest tests show no evidence that it was thrown.

Following another examination of the uniforms of policemen
who claimed to have been hit by the substance during the evacuation, the
police now say that no evidence of the material was found. Parents and other
supporters of the indicted youths responded angrily, blaming the police, the
prosecution and the media.

Miriam Goldfisher of Beit El, whose son was among the
hundreds who were on the roof of the Kfar Darom synagogue during the
resistance, told Arutz-7 that there are several scandalous aspects of the
story:
* The police and prosecution released outright lies;
* indictments were indiscriminately handed down based on a
person's presence at the site and not based on his actions;
* the media did not allow reporters to report certain
facts, and more.

"Some 320 people were on the roof that day," Mrs.
Goldfisher said. "We know that because that's how many people were taken
down from there into buses and straight into jail - for a week or more. I
know of over 100 indictments that have been handed down so far, and more and
more keep trickling in. The language of the indictment is downright
scandalous. In many cases, the boys are not accused of anything specific,
but rather: 'As part of that crowd from which caustic soda was thrown on
security forces, the accused supported, by his presence, the acts of
violence.'"

"When the university students rioted, and injured
policemen and caused traffic jams," Goldfisher said, "they weren't indicted
for being 'part of the crowd,' but for specific actions... The ease with
which the police and prosecution publicize false information is simply
intolerable, and necessitates a commission of inquiry."

She blames the media as well. The main news story at the
time of the expulsion from Kfar Darom - Thursday, August 18, 2005 - was the
alleged throwing of caustic soda at the policemen. Goldfisher said that two
reporters on the roof - one from Reshet Bet (Voice of Israel) and one from
Channel Ten television - immediately reported live that there was no caustic
soda there, "but they were quickly hushed-up by their home studios...
Furthermore, we had two doctors who immediately checked the policemen who
complained, and they said that the policemen were not hit by caustic soda."

A-7: "Then what were they hit by? It was reported that
about ten policemen started screaming in pain and ripped off their
shirts..."

Goldfisher: "We also had some boys who had the same
symptoms. The police threw some blue-colored liquid or water on the boys on
the roof, possibly so they could identify them better, and the boys threw it
back at them."

MK Sha'ul Yahalom (National Religious Party) said that the
police and State Prosecution had been "partners in one big blood libel,"
while MK Michael Eitan called for the establishment of a commission of
inquiry.

"The revelation that no evidence of caustic soda was found
on the policemen's clothes," Yahalom said, "is like the testimony of 1,000
witnesses that the [many] indictments - which apparently were just a result
of politics and had nothing to do with reality - should be withdrawn."

MK Michael Eitan, Chairman of the Law Committee, has
written to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz as follows: "To my regret,
despite my repeated requests, the Prosecution filed indictments based on
this false information. Now dozens of indictments have to be erased, and a
commission of inquiry must be established to find out how this mishap
occurred in the law enforcement network."

MK Eitan noted that the Law Committee is still waiting for
explanations from Mazuz and the Prosecution as to the policy governing the
way in which the indictments were handed down against resistors who engaged
in passive resistance.

Yahalom noted that it has long been known that the
accusations against the youths were false: "At our session of the Knesset
Law Committee, with hospital experts who treated the policemen, it was clear
that all the talk that lye had been thrown at them was one big lie."

Uri Ariel (National Union) said that Attorney General
Mazuz should be fired:
"The man who stood behind the false arrest and dishonest
indictments against the rooftop protestors of Kfar Darom, and who led a
tendentious investigation and indictment against Avri Ran, and who thwarts
every possible agreement in Hevron, and who drags the police and the IDF
into difficult and unnecessary clashes - is not suitable to continue to
stand at the helm of Israel's law enforcement system."

Orit Strook, head of the Yesha (Judea and Samaria)
Council's civil rights desk, said that the damage caused to the arrestees
was significant, and included long incarceration, harm to their good name,
prevention of their enlistment in the IDF, and financial expenses. The Yesha
Civil Rights Organization is taking initial steps to collect all the
relevant information and possibly file a suit against Police Commissioner
Moshe Karadi, Attorney General Mazuz, and senior State Prosecution official
Atty. Shai Nitzan.