Report: 4 settler teens detained for arson, vandalism

[Violet_Crumble]

TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma'an) -- The lawyer of four young settlers is blaming the education of the teenagers for their alleged acts of vandalism and arson targeting Palestinians, the daily news site Ynet reported on Sunday.

The four, three said to be minors and a fourth only 20-years-old, were detained on suspicion they torched Palestinian vehicles in Hebron during May.

According to the report, the young women were suspected to have carried out the petty crimes out in what settlers call the "price tag policy," which sees settlers attack Palestinians and their property in retribution for Israeli government or military action limiting settler activity.

<snip>

The lawyer for some of the young women was said to have explained, "this was one way teens relieved stress nowadays."

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=397989

[Dept of Beer]

1. I wonder what kind of punishment will be rewarded to these youngsters.

I 4 Palestinians had done such a thing what would happen to their parents property? What would be the punishment?

[Violet_Crumble]

4. I'll be interested to see what the punishment will be...

I'll post it as a follow up if I spot it...

[oberliner]

2. This is another Ma'an article about an article

That outlet has a tendency to simply paraphrase articles written in the Israeli press highlighting the bits they wish to stress and removing the parts they aren't as interested in.

Here is the Ynet article itself that this article paraphrases and edits:

4 girls arrested for 'Price tag' violence

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4084194,00.html

Here is the totality of the remarks you "snipped" to in the Ma'an version (which itself "snipped" whatever it didn't like from the Ynet article it re-wrote):

The girls are being represented by Attorney Naftali Wertzbiger, who told Ynet this was one way teens relieved stress nowadays. He added that instead of educating them, the state was turning them into criminals.

"Police are doing their job, but welfare and prosecution officials must understand that there is frustration and rebellion here that require positive treatment. Arresting them and cuffing them will only cause identification and in increase in these crimes, which no doubt have no justification."

[Violet_Crumble]

3. I don't usually worry who publishes what first. I'm more interested in the story...

And it's a very ugly story. And an ugly attempt at minimising what they did from the attorney...

[aranthus]

5. Sometimes I am ashamed of my chosen profession.

This is what the bar calls, "zealous representation."

[Violet_Crumble]

6. Do you think folk like that realise everyone's laughing at them?

And not laughing in an 'I'm laughing with you' sort of way. There was one case here very recently where one woman stabbed another at a local shopping centre. The stabbed woman died later on the operating table, and the defence argument was that the stabber wasn't responsible for the woman's death and shouldn't be charged. It was the doctors who killed her by trying to save her who were to blame. That was a bit of a facepalm moment...

[aranthus]

7. It's hard to say.

I don't know the attorney involved. He/she could be the Israeli version of Clarence Darrow, or they could be a hack. I don't know if they have self awareness problems, or whether they are just painfully aware of how bad their clients' case is, and they are saying what they have to with the cards that they have been dealt.