| Shin bet softer on jewish terrorists says services chief Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/679514.htmlhttp://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/679514.html
Last update - 20:52 06/02/2006 Diskin: Shin Bet softer on Jewish terror suspects By Haaretz Service
Shin Bet security services show more leniency toward Jewish terror suspects than toward Israeli Arab or Palestinian suspects, the services chief, Yuval Diskin, was quoted as saying on Monday.
"If I had arrested a terrorist from Nablus and Eden Nathan Zada," Diskin said, referring to the Jewish terrorist who gunned down four Israeli Arabs last August in a bid to hamper the Gaza disengagement, "they wouldn't have received similar treatment in interrogation or court."
"A Jewish detainee and one from [the Israeli-Arab town of] Umm al-Fahm, would not be treated equally by the judicial system," Channel 10 news quoted the Shin Bet chief as telling a group of teenagers in the West Bank settlement of Eli.
"If we're talking about discrimination, you would find out that the discrimination leans much more in favor of Jews than Arabs," Diskin said in his talk last month.
The right has decried what it branded as the state's brutality toward settlers and their supporters following the evacuation of the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona last month, where some 200 protesters and security forces were injured in violent clashes.
"A Jew who carries out terror attacks is a cancer in the nation more than an Arab who carries out an attack," Diskin said.
When asked why the Shin Bet doesn't close down its "Jewish department," which monitors extremists Jewish activities, Diskin replied, "the Jewish department won?t be closed down because there is a problem."
"If there hadn't been a problem, there wouldn't have been a Jewish department. If you make sure and help not having a problem, then it will be closed down. If you knew how many people worked in it, you would have burst out in laughter," he said.
Diskin also expressed his reservations toward Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the northern Gaza Strip.
"The political echelon can make what ever decisions it wants, I, as head of Shin Bet, oppose handing Palestinians land unless we know there is a Palestinian body that can take over and do the job."
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