In September 2012, vandals painted graffiti and vandalized a monastery in Latrun.

At the time, speculation went wild as to who did it, and of course, settlers were immediately blamed, despite the lack of evidence.

In July 2013, Moshe Orbach, a 22 year old man from Givot HaShomron was arrested and held for 9 days, accused of the crime.

But for the past year and half the police investigation went nowhere.

On Thursday all charges against Orbach were dropped and his file officially closed, after police found no evidence that actually linked Orbach to the crime.

Orbach’s lawyer from Honeinu said this is yet another example of an irresponsible police fishing expedition that led nowhere, except to more false arrests instigated by political and media pressure.

Orbach is considering suing the police for false arrest.

Jews in Samaria allegedly set fire to a home near Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, last Saturday night and left behind graffiti in Hebrew that stated “Death to Arabs.”

Dozens of similar “price tag” attacks in the past have been attributed to Jews. Sometimes, the attackers are caught. More often, they are not.

Lefties complain that the police do not catch the culprits, but one of the reasons is that sometimes the whole case was contrived by Arabs to frame Jews. Another possibility is that the James Bond Dept. of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) is behind the criminal act in order to build up media outrage at settlers so the public will pressure the government to expel them to Tel Aviv.

In this case, “settlers” supposedly knocked on the door of the home, discovered no one was home and then scrawled hate slogans and set the residence on fire, using flammable liquid.

A mother with three children were reported to be in the house and were claimed to have been rescued by neighbors through the back door;

Pray tell, why did the Jews, bang on the door? To give them warning to leave? To ask for a match? To burn the residents also?

And if no one was home, how does anyone know that those awful settlers banged on the door?

Did the neighbors hear the noise?

And if so, why didn’t they whip out their smartphones and take pictures of the arsonists?

And where was the husband?

For the record, idiotic Jews may have torched the home.

Unless, of course, someone wanted to frame the Jews, and perhaps even collect insurance at the same time.

A boy from Tapuach was arrested overnight when Taibe police driving by noticed him waiting at a bus stop at Tzomet Kessem and looking suspicious to them, because he looked like a “hilltop youth”.

They asked what he was doing at the hitchhiking station (“going home”), and if he was planning on writing “Tag Machir” – Price Tag somewhere (“no”).

They demanded to see the contents of his bag (he complied).

The police found three highlighters in his bag and arrested him, as they decided he was his thinking about writing “Tag Machir” somewhere (with yellow highlighters!).

The boy explained that the highlighters are for highlighting words in his notebook.

The boy was taken to the Taibe police station.

In the morning, the very overworked Jewish civil rights lawyer Itamar Ben-Gvir arrived, threatened the police with a civil lawsuit for false arrest (and hopefully idiocy), and the police released the boy with no charges.

The Shin Bet security service issued a restraining order today against an 18-year-old resident of the Binyamin region who was released from police custody last week following two weeks of interrogation by security officers. 

According to Honenu, a legal aid organization that is representing the family, interrogators beat the teenager, known only as “S.”,but failed to provide evidence linking him with the Price Tag attack for which he was detained.

The suspect was due to complete his police-ordered period of house arrest today. 

“It seems that interrogators wanted to do their own ‘price tag’ attack to avenge their failed interrogation,” Honenu said in  a statement.

Honenu said that police raided the suspects’ house early Sunday morning, detained him and brought him to the Shin Bet interrogation centre in Petah Tikva. The suspect was put in a cell with “Ehud” and “Maimon”, to agents who had questioned him at length. The Shin Bet men warned the man they would “not get off his case,” and told him they had a “gift” for him – and presented him with an administrative order preventing him from entering Judea and Samaria for a year. 

The order was signed by General Nitzan Alon, commander of the IDF Central Command.

Family members and friends accused the Shin Bet of acting like “thugs” and “common criminals,” and said the restraining order is nothing more than revenge against the young man for humiliating investigators. “He was investigated for an incident that took place in the north of Israel, six months ago. Now, all of a sudden it’s dangerous for him to be in Judea and Samaria,” they said.

An IDF soldier was arrested this week on suspicion he was involved in slashing the tires of an IDF vehicle and spray painting the words “price tag” and “death to the Pope” on an IDF vehicle. The soldier reportedly denied any involvement in the incidents.

According to Honenu, a non-profit legal aid organization, the soldier, who is a graduate of the David’s Tomb Yeshiva and wears a large knitted kiipa, was arrested last Monday and interrogated for two days. The organization said the soldier denied the accusations, but added that interrogators made him write “Death to the Pope” apparently in order to compare the handwriting to the graffiti on the IDF vehicle.

The soldier returned to his unit without charge.

Police investigators descended on the Gush Etzion town of Bat Ayin Tuesday to arrest three brothers, the youngest of whom is 10 years old. The older brothers, aged 17 and 19 years old, said police beat their younger sibling during the arrest. “One investigator choked my brother while the others beat him mercilessly,” said one of the older brothers.

The three brothers were brought to the Gush Etzion police station where the commanding officer delivered a warning talk to youngest brother, who was then released because at the age of 10, he cannot be charged with a crime.

But according to Honenu, a legal aid organization that provides representation in Judea and Samaria the two older brothers remain in custody at this hour, and added that the detainees have not been told why they were taken into custody. A Honenu spokesman said the brothers were “shocked” to learn that police claimed they had thrown stones at the police car, and added that the brothers denied “out of hand” the police claim.

The incident followed a similar one in Bat Ayin yesterday, when a 12-year-old boy was detained after police said he prevented them from entering the community synagogue. He, too, was interrogated and released.

The 17-year-old, who cannot be named because he is a minor, said plainclothes General Security Service (GSS, or Shabak) officers interrogated him and threatened him.

“Two plainclothes guys came into the investigation room. One introduced himself as ‘Dan.’ He started threatening me and said he is watching me 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“He told me that his goal was to put me in jail for the rest of my life, and that he would hurt me and my family. I laughed, and he told me that the day would come when I would be held in a dark cell and that he would laugh at me. When I continued laughing he left the room,” the 17-year-old said.

Parents turn to Children’s Council

In addition to the Bat Ayin detainees, the family of a 16-year-old boy from Jerusalem have asked the Israel National Council for the Child for help in making contact with their son. They say GSS agents detained him six days ago and have taken the rare step of preventing him from meeting with a lawyer.

“Last Wednesday morning our son was walking down Hanivi’im Street in Jerusalem when he was accosted by two men in civilian clothes. They took him to an undisclosed location. From that moment, we haven’t heard from him or seen him, and we have no idea how he is,” the parents said. We understand that the GSS is interrogating our son under terms of a rarely-used legal clause which prohibits him from seeing a lawyer,” the family said in a statement released by Honenu.

If order to make contact with their son, the parents have asked Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, head of the Israel Council for the Child , to press GSS authorities on their behalf to obtain access to the prisoner.

“This is an opportunity for the Council to investigate the repeated violations committed against minors,” said attorney Adi Keidar, who represents the children. “Violations of the law continue unabated, and no one thinks of the long-term effects of extended periods of incarceration of minors in inhumane conditions in GSS lockups.

President of the Israel National Council for the Child, Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, was not immediately available for comment.

ACRI, Feiglin agree: Detentions recall “dark regimes”

MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud Betenu) said Tuesday that the detention of price tag suspects without evidence places israel alongside the world’s “darkest regimes.”

“The witch hunt against the tough price tag phenomenon has led to minors being held on suspicion of vandalism and prevented from seeing lawyers,” said MK Feiglin. “This is a very serious phenomenon  that should make anyone who holds human rights dear.

“Arresting minors (and adults) for suspected vandalism and property damage and withholding their legal rights under the pretext of ‘the rule of law’ places Israel on the same level as some very dark regimes. I am certain that had the vandalism occurred on the other side of the political map the police would not have dared act this way.

Nirit Moskovitch, a spokeswoman for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, said her organization has not acted on this case is that so many detainees in Israeli jails are prevented from meeting with legal counsel that ACRI cannot respond to each case individually.

“The reason this case has made headlines is the comparatively rare case that the individuals involved are Jews,” Moskovitch told The Jewish Press.

Moskovitch added that the organization is completely opposed to the practice of preventing prisoners from legal counsel, especially when the detainees are minors.  She also said that ACRI has spoken out strongly against designating Price Tag attacks,  offensive as they may be, as “terror” attacks.

“We will continue to call for a strong battle against these despicable hate crimes, which require determination and financial resources on the part of police. These measures need not stand in distinction to respect for the rights of suspects and those interrogated.

“Labelling price taggers as a ‘terror group’ could have serious consequences for the human rights of individuals suspected of these crimes,” Moskovitch said.

Two Jewish teenagers was detained Wednesday on King George Street after allegedly attempting to spray paint the words Price Tag and Nahman from Uman on the street. No details were released about when the minors would be charged and if they would be released.