Neo-Nazi gang busted inside Israel

Nazi brutality has been transplanted to central Israel, where a gang of skinheads has been preying on victims for more than a year. Police have arrested at least nine tough immigrant youths from the former Soviet Union, all but one full Israeli citizens, who repeatedly had attacked gays, observant Jews, and mixed-race immigrants. The investigation was launched after synagogues and cemeteries in Petah Tikva were defaced with swastikas last summer. A cache of films and paraphernalia sickened seasoned Israeli cops, who displayed seized cell phone happy snaps of Heil Hitler salutes, torn Israeli flags, and IDF rifles. Through internet links and videos, the skinheads boasted of their exploits in Israel to neo-Nazis abroad. Police urged immediate legislation to ban individuals and groups from adopting or acting according to Nazi ideology in the State of Israel. A gag-order was lifted one month after arrests in the industrial city once known as "the mother of all settlements."
Who could have predicted the need for Israel to pass laws against anti-Semitism?

Eli Boanitov, a 19-year-old Petah Tikva resident nicknamed Eli the Nazi, is accused of heading the sadistic cult.

As the group's leader, Boanitov allegedly selected people for membership and served as instructor and main propagator of Nazi ideology both on an ideological and operational level. Police said Boanitov "led them to attack, in a cruel and brutal manner, citizens and innocent people belonging to various groups including Asians, drug addicts, gays, punks and kippa-wearing Jews."

In the police report, Boanitov was quoted as saying, "I'll never give up. I was a Nazi and I'll stay a Nazi. Until we kill all of them, I won't relax."The suspects were also sporting numerous Nazi-associated tattoos including "White Power" accompanied by Celtic crosses ... The numbers 88 were tattooed on members' fingers, with police explaining that "8" represents the ordinal place of the letter "H," thus standing for "HH" or Heil Hitler. [Films show] gang members punching and kicking, using broken bottles and everything at hand, attacking innocent victims without any prior contact or instigation... faces of the suspects are frequently hidden by superimposed swastikas and at times, the suspects are seen wearing Nazi-style uniforms and delivering Nazi salutes, as well as delivering statements calling for the burning and destruction of the Jewish people.

Disgust and dismay greeted reports of these teenage Nazi skinheads organizing north of Tel Aviv and perpetuating the abuses of the 1930-1940s. Many of the former Soviet youths evaded detection by using Russian internet servers to spread their propaganda. Although almost all came to Israel as children through the "right of return", few had much religious upbringing in the former Soviet Union and now confessed to feeling alienated inside the Jewish state.
Last year, arrests of female neo-Nazis who attacked ultra-orthodox passersby were reported. Veteran reporter Eric Silver filed full details about the cabinet's reaction to these shocking arrests.