– NAZI Legitimacy?
Israeli neo-Nazi gang filmed attacking Jews
By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem

Israel was in shock this weekend after police revealed they had broken up a gang of homegrown neo-Nazis who praised Adolf Hitler, attacked orthodox Jews and surrounded themselves with the paraphernalia of white supremacists.

Police arrested eight young men in their late teens and early twenties a month ago in the central town of Petah Tikvah.

What the investigating officers found so disturbing was only released on Sunday.

"It is difficult to believe that Nazi ideology sympathisers can exist in Israel, but it is a fact," said Revital Almog, the police officer who led the investigation.

The men, all recently arrived Russian immigrants who are nominally Jewish through a grandparent, were found to have filmed themselves giving Nazi salutes and carrying out mob attacks on homosexuals, non-whites and observant Jews.

Several were found to have an 88 tattoo, which is meant to symoblise "Heil Hitler" as "H" is the eighth letter of the alphabet.

During police interviews, one said they vowed to "kill them all", referring to people outside the frame of white supremacism.

advertisementThe ringleader, 19-year-old Eli Boynatov, who styled himself "Eli the Nazi", was taped denouncing his own grandfather as a "jewboy" and vowing not to have any children because it would continue the "jewboy bloodline".

The gang also desecrated two synagogues by spraying them with Nazi swastikas.

While the occasional individual Nazi sympathiser has been found in Israel, this cell was the largest and most organised group ever uncovered.

Israeli MPs have called for a new law to allow the deportation of Nazi sympathisers. As it stands, the only laws the men broke appear to be crimes of violence.

They are expected to be charged with what amounts to grievous bodily harm later this week.

Israeli TV showed grainy footage of people lying helpless on the floor while the gang kicked them, and of a man being hit on the head with an empty bottle.

Police found knives, explosives and other weapons in the suspects’ possession. One photo that was seized showed one suspect holding an M16 rifle and a sign reading "Heil Hitler".