Dym Demolishes Damning Demonization

On October 21, after Susie Dym conferred with me, I blogged about the "acid-thrown-in-a-policeman's-face story at Hebron.

I wrote what I wrote and suggested what I suggested.

Lo and behold! Susie won:

Claim settlers used acid against police in Hebron unsubstantiated

A widely publicized police allegation that settlers threw acid at a policeman during the evacuation of a four-story Hebron apartment building in December 2008 was unsubstantiated, The Jerusalem Post has established.

...During the evacuation by security personnel on December 4, 2008, many media outlets, including the Post, reported a police claim that settlers threw acid into a police officer's eye. But subsequent investigation by the Post has established that no one was formally charged with acid-throwing in the months following the incident, and no evidence has been presented to substantiate the claim.

A former Judea and Samaria Police spokesman confirmed that he sent the media a message during the evacuation alleging the acid attack, after being told by a police medic who was on the scene that an irritant was thrown into an officer's eye.

The spokesman said he did not know what medical diagnosis had been reached by hospital doctors who later treated the policeman. Neither the police nor the Police Investigations Department has asked the former spokesman to comment on the issue since the incident, he added.

A police check carried out at the request of the Post found that state prosecutors did not charge any suspect arrested in connection with the evacuation for acid attacks.

...Susie Dym, a spokeswoman for the pro-settler organization Mattot Arim, said that settlers and the right-wing community had always mistrusted the authenticity of the acid claim and suspected that it was false.

Dym said the lack of any subsequent charges or further personal testimony by police and prosecutors had led her to conclusively dismiss the claim.

Dym had urged the Post to examine the veracity of the acid-throwing charge, as the allegation had continued to resurface in the media and was cited as an example of settler violence, she said.

It was important, she added, to set the record straight in light of what she described as a litany of false charges being directed at settlers. "They have not committed one-thousandth of the [crimes] of which they have been accused," Dym said.

Now, on to the JTA!