An American-born Israeli Jew, a settler who killed two
Palestinians and wounded two Israelis, was convicted Wednesday
on two counts of first degree murder and a string of other hate
crimes, including attempted murder and incitement to violence.
The Jerusalem District Court rejected psychiatric testimony on
behalf of the defendant and found that Jack Tytell was legally
responsible for the 10 crimes he had confessed to and therefore
“has no defense” in the insanity plea submitted by his lawyers.
Judge Moshe Drori, the author of the decision, rejected claims
that Tytell was delusional and had acted on the orders of
angels, as his lawyers claimed. Citing Tytell’s police
interrogation transcript, in which Tytell said he had come to
Israel primarily to “revenge the deaths of Jews at the hands of
our Arab enemies,” Drori noted that the defendant did not claim
to have come on account of “a signal from God or an angel,
neither in dreams nor in day dreams.”  He later noted in the
99-page ruling that Tytell chose to s