TEL AVIV – Israeli far-left activist Ezra Nawi was indicted on Sunday on charges of informing the Palestinian Authority security service about Palestinians involved in selling West Bank land to Israeli Jews and endangering their lives, marking the first time a Jew will be tried for abetting the PA.
In 2016, Nawi was arrested on several charges including attempted murder, contact with a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit a crime. Sunday’s indictment, however, did not mention those charges and said only that Nawi was guilty of violating a law forbidding Israelis from cooperating with the Palestinian Authority’s preventative security forces.
PA law stipulates capital punishment for anyone convicted of selling land to Jews.
Nawi, who founded a far-left group called Ta’yush, was secretly recorded by Uvda, Israel’s version of CBS’s 60 Minutes, confessing that he helped Palestinian authorities track down Palestinians trying to sell land to Jews.
“Straightaway I give their pictures and phone numbers to the [Palestinian] Preventive Security Force,” Nawi is heard saying about Palestinian realtors. “The Palestinian Authority catches them and kills them. But before it kills them, they get beat up a lot.”
The show triggered a maelstrom with right-wing activists saying it proved that left-wing groups are anti-Israel and have no interest in human rights.
According to the indictment, Nawi also provided Palestinian officials with information on land deals and border delineations between Palestinian and Jewish farmers.
“This is a shameful day for the State Prosecutor’s Office,” said Nawi’s attorneys Eitan Peleg and Leah Tsemel. “It is sad for anyone who believes in the law enforcement system. After two-and-a-half years of harassment, the prosecution filed an indictment that is entirely the result of illegal political pressure.”
“We have no doubt that Ezra is completely innocent and we are happy to be able to expose in court the depth of the rot and the political pressures that have entered into the considerations of the police and the State Prosecutor’s Office,” the lawyers said.
The rightwing Ad Kan group, which first went undercover to expose Nawi, reacted to the indictment saying, “The organization is happy to assist law enforcement authorities in Israel to bring to justice offenders who harm IDF soldiers and Israeli security. However, we believe that it is justified to attribute heavier charges to Nawi and his colleagues that correctly reflect the crimes they allegedly committed.”