Israeli court hands settler three years in prison for ‘price tag’ arson

by Stephen Oryszczuk

An Israeli court has sent a Jewish settler to prison for three years after he was found guilty of carrying out a ‘price tag’ arson attack on a Palestinian village in the West Bank in 2013.

Binyamin Richter was the third person to have been convicted of the racially-motivated attack, after a damning statement from Israeli security service Shin Bet helped seal their fate.

The three men had sought to advance their ideological goals “at the cost of casting fear over government decisions and sowing terror among the Palestinian population,” said the intelligence agency.

It added that the men not only harmed Palestinian property and people, but forced Israel’s spies to divert “considerable manpower” to the matter and caused “grave damage to Israel’s image in the international arena.”

The two other men – Yehuda Landsberg and Yehuda Savir – had a record of violence towards Palestinians.

All three, aged 22-25, were found guilty of racist incitement, conspiracy to commit a hate crime, arson and vandalism.