In Marzel Case, Israeli Intelligence Put to the Test
![](https://images.forwardcdn.com/image/970x/center/images/cropped/baruchmarzel2-021009-1425725352.jpg)
![](https://images.forwardcdn.com/image/675x/center/images/cropped/baruchmarzel2-021009-1425725352.jpg)
Today, a man named Baruch Marzel was due to supervise polling in the Islamist stronghold of Umm al-Fahm in Northern Israel. This is because every party is entitled to supervise every polling station.
The problem is that Marzel of the National Union Party is probably the county’s most notorious far-right activist, who has been long set on going to Umm al-Fahm to make the symbolic statement that all of Israel, including those parts populated by Arabs, is in his opinion Jewish. He sees himself as the successor to the late Meir Kahane, the far-right rabbi and politician whose Kach party was deemed racist in 1986, and was interviewed for this article in the Forward.
Despite calls for Marzel not to be allowed to supervise in Umm al-Fahm, the Central Elections Committee upheld his right to do so and police appeared to have no intention to stop him. It was only that the eleventh hour that police decided he would not be allowed in. The reason for the change of heart? As Ha’aretz reports, “…intelligence indicated that unrest was likely if he had been permitted to oversee the voting station.”
The complexity of the intelligence-gathering procedures that reached this conclusion makes the mind boggle.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
![](https://forward.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image.png?_t=1722445328)
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO