TEL AVIV - The arrest of a Jewish-American extremist for a 12-year string of murders and bombings has raised fears that a new breed of Jewish terrorist is emerging in the illegal settlements of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank.
Israeli police said on Wednesday they have arrested the neighbour of a West Bank settler accused of killing two Palestinians and carrying out a series of bombings.
The arrest came as Israel marked the 14th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a messianic Jewish extremist on Nov. 4, 1995, for signing the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians.
The latest suspect, Yossi Spinoza, 50, is being held in connection to the case of Jack Teitel, 37, a radical settler accused of killing two Palestinians in 1997 and setting off several bombs that wounded people.
Police said Teitel has a hardline rightwing ideology based on hatred of Palestinians, leftwingers, homosexuals and even the Israeli police.
Police said Teitel has a hardline rightwing ideology based on hatred of Palestinians, leftwingers, homosexuals and even the Israeli police.
"He is a determined man with very deeply-rooted ideology," Eki Makmel, the deputy commander of an Israeli police Swat team, was quoted as saying.
Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, described Teitel as a "Jewish terrorist", adding: "He was deeply involved in terrorism in all different levels."
It is rare for Israeli police to make such an arrest, even though human rights groups have documented repeated incidents of settler violence against Palestinians.
Police said they interrogated Spinoza two weeks ago before releasing him. Both men are American-born Israelis who lived in Shevut Rachel, a Jewish settlement in the central West Bank between Ramallah and Nablus.
Teitel, whose arrest last month was announced on Sunday, has confessed to the murder of a Palestinian taxi driver in Palestinian East Jerusalem and a shepherd in the occupied West Bank, according to police.
He allegedly said the killings, which took place during a visit from the United States, were revenge for Palestinian suicide attacks against Israel.
Teitel is also alleged to have carried out a string of bombings since 2006 that injured a Palestinian and seriously wounded a 15-year-old boy whose family belonged to a Jewish sect which embraces Jesus.
Another bomb wounded a leading left-wing Israeli professor, Zeev Sternhell, while two other attacks targeted police stations, police said.
Teitel, a father of four, was arrested while putting up "Death to sodomites" posters and confessed to bombing the police stations to divert police from protecting gay pride parades.
Teitel, the son of a US Marine Corps dentist, was born in Florida and raised on military bases.
Settlers frequently clash with Palestinians in the West Bank but killings are rare. The most infamous incident was the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinians by a radical American-born settler in a mosque in the West Bank town of Hebron.
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