ISRAELI STATE PROSECUTION RELENTLESS IN PURSUING JEWISH DISSIDENTS

Israeljustice.com

  JERUSALEM -- An Israeli court reversed a decision to release a Jewish dissident after the state prosecution petitioned to appeal the release in a higher court.  
    On October 14, Jerusalem Magistrate Ram Vinograd ordered Elhanan Groner distanced from the home of Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan until the end of judicial proceedings against him. Immediately, the state prosecution requested an order delaying the judge's decision and asked that Groner remain in custody pending an appeal to the Jerusalem District Court.  
    Several hours later, the state prosecution rushed through an indictment for offending a civil servant, punishable by six months in prison. The law, introduced by the British Mandate before the founding of the Jewish state, was reintroduced prior to the government's destruction of the Gush Katif block in Gaza in August 2005. Nitzan, who was instrumental in devising and implementing special guidelines to prosecute opponents of the government's policy in 2005, including minors who were first-time offenders, has relentlessly appealed all acquittals of anti-government protesters.  
    Groner, 19, is the younger brother of Ariel Groner who, on October 11, was served an administrative expulsion order from his home in the Jewish community in Yitzhar in northern Samaria and from the West Bank for six months. Groner is charged with insulting Nitzan on the evening of October 13. Groner, who is married and lives in Yitzhar, was visiting his parents who are neighbors of Nitzan in a Jerusalem neighborhood. He allegedly went to the state prosecutor's home and told him he should be ashamed of himself for the latest administrative expulsion orders. Groner is also charged with telling Nitzan's childen, aged eight and 11 that they should be ashamed of their father. Groner has denied the charges.  
    Groner was immediately arrested and investigated by police in Nitzan's home. He was then taken to Jerusalem's Russian Compound jail where he remains in custody despite the magistrate's decision to release him.  
    "This was a good decision for them [the state prosecution]," Shmuel Meidad, head of the Honenu Legal Aid Organization, said. "But they want him held until the end of judicial proceedings. They also arrested his wife and she is being investigated."  
    Groner, then 18, was distanced from Judea and Samaria in November 2008 for three months on the eve of the army's eviction of Jews from the peace house in Hebron also by an administrative expulsion order signed by Israeli Army Central District Commander Maj.-Gen. Gadi Shamni. Meidad said that the three young men, Ariel Groner, Akiva HaCohen and Eliav Eliahu, who just received administrative expulsion orders from Judea and Samaria for six months have not yet decided how they will respond. Non-compliance with the order results in imprisonment.