Bar-Ilan professor charged with planning mass Arab killings

The gag order has been lifted: Prof. Shachar Nevo, a mathematics lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, is the man charged with planning terror attacks against hundreds of Arab citizens in Israel.

The Central District Prosecutor's Office filed the indictment against the 60-year-old Petach Tikva resident, who over several years devised and planned an extremist scheme to massacre Arabs.

According to the indictment, Nevo planned to recruit 72 Jewish operatives who would be divided into 12 terror cells to carry out mass attacks in mixed cities and Arab towns. The plan included the murder of hundreds of Arab citizens of Israel, including Bedouin, across the country, as well as Arabs living in eastern Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria. The goal of the plan was to cause their flight and permanent expulsion to Jordan, Lebanon and Arab states.

The indictment charges the defendant with security offenses of preparing to commit an act of terror under the Counter-Terrorism Law, extortion by threats, and obstruction of justice. The prosecution is asking the court to hold him in custody until the end of the legal proceedings against him. The court's decision includes a gag order on the defendant's name, but it was permitted to publish that the person in question is Prof. Shachar Nevo.

Against the backdrop of the "Guardian of the Walls" riots and later, with greater intensity against the backdrop of the "Swords of Iron" war, the defendant decided out of nationalist-ideological motives to plan and carry out numerous terror attacks simultaneously. The plan also included recruiting assistance from subversive elements to be recruited from within the IDF.

No one responded to the lecturer's alarming initiative. The defendant even tried to extort Moshe Feiglin, but his attempts to recruit supporters for his plan failed. The case was investigated by the Central District Serious Crimes Unit of the Israel Police, which succeeded in exposing the murderous plan.

Following the filing of the indictment, Bar-Ilan University removed Professor Nevo's photograph from its faculty website. The university has not yet issued an official statement on the matter, but the removal of the photograph indicates a distancing from the lecturer who planned the attacks.