I have always admired the famous saying leyt din v’leyt dayan (“There is no justice and no judge”), which I first heard attributed to the great Hasidic Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Kotsk. It actually originated with the controversial Talmudic sage, Elisha ben Abuya, who saw a young boy climb a tree to retrieve eggs from a bird’s nest. In an attempt to ease the mother bird’s sorrow, before stealing her eggs he shooed her away and, in the process he fell and died. The death disturbed Abuya, since he could not understand how God would allow a child to die while honoring the commandment to shield a mother from the pain of seeing her own offspring torn from her. This incident is reputed to have shaken him and his faith to the core and led to his subsequent apostasy.
Despite the its ancient origins, I’ve always found the statement terribly modern, full of rebellion and questioning of God’s providence. This certainly is the case with 10 year old Abir Aramin, murdered by the Israeli border police (see previous posts on the case) on her way to take a grade school examination in an Israeli Arab village. Abir’s case became notorious because her father has dedicated his life to breaking down barriers between warriors on each side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through Combatants for Peace, a group including ex-fighters from both sides who’ve renounced violence in an effort to bridge the gap through peace.
Abir Aramin: death of the innocents at the hands of Israeli Border PoliceYesterday, hundreds of Israeli Jewish and Arab protesters gathered to protest a recent government ruling that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute anyone for Abir’s murder:
Police detained seven people during a demonstration held outside the Jerusalem District Court Wednesday in protest of the decision to close the investigation into the death of a Palestinian girl killed last January. Officers said the protesters attempted to break into the building.
Ten-year-old Abir Aramin of Anata…was critically wounded on January 16 during a clash between Palestinian school students and Israeli Border Guard officers in the refugee camp. She lay clinically dead at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem for three days as doctors fought for her life, but was then taken off life support.
Last week prosecutors told the girl’s family that the investigation would be closed due to “lack of sufficient evidence”.
Yanai Yisraeli, 26, of Tel Aviv said after the rally, “It cannot be that a 10-year-old girl takes a bullet, it is proven that she was killed, and still no one is found guilty.”
“We consider this decision to be racist.”
According to human rights group Yesh Din, eyewitnesses said the Palestinian girl was hit after Border Guard officers pointed their rifles toward her.
“No immunity for murders in uniform” (Activestills)Neither the family, nor any of the protesters were under any illusion that the government decision would have been any different than it was since almost all Border Police or IDF soldiers prosecutions result from international pressure and embarrassment. The killers of James Miller may be prosecuted and the killer of Tom Hurndall was successfully prosecuted. But only because of British government pressure. When Israeli Arabs or Palestinians are killed in cold blood it will be a cold day in summer when you see anyone in the security forces held responsible.
That a miscarriage of justice has occurred in the Aramin case is almost indisputable based on news coverage of the incident which I’ve written about extensively here. Do not let Abir’s memory die. Do not let the spirit of nonviolent resistance to Occupation die.
Returning to the Abuya midrash. It’s instructive to recall the tragic circumstance that motivated his original statement:
In the Torah it is written that the reward for obeying your parents is that your days will be lengthened. It also says that the reward for chasing the mother bird out of the nest before taking the eggs is that your days will be lengthened. One day Elisha b. Abuyya, a great scholar and rabbi , saw a father tell his son to climb a tree and fetch some eggs. The boy did exactly that, and chased the mother bird away first—obeying two commandments at the same time, both of which promise long life. While he was in the midst of obeying these two seemingly life-extending commandments, he fell to his death.
Not able to withstand his rage and pain at such an injustice, Abuya made his famously lacertated comment about divine indifference to human suffering. If Abuya’s spirit were alive today he would be speaking the same words over the death of little Abir and Israel’s refusal to hold anyone accountable.
Once again you are being sloppy with an unfounded accusation of murder.
It is very sad that this little girl was killed. She was killed during a confrontation between rock throwers and border police. Immediately after it happened the Palestinian “eye witnesses” claimed she was hit with a rubber bullet. Two CT scans before she died and an autopsy proved the she could not have been killed by a rubber bullet but rather by a large blunt object such as a rock or a gas cannister. It is possible that she was killed by a tear gas cannister thrown or fired by border police but it is also possible that she was killed by a rock thrown by Palestinians which fell short. Just like a few days ago a kassam rocket meant to kill Israeli civilians fell short and killed two Gazan children. I probably missed your post about those two children or the over 500 more killed by Palestinians in Gaza from just the beginning of this year including women and children.
No, it is you who are sloppy & neglect to mention facts inconvenient to yr questionable claims. The Border Police were notorious for deliberately & regularly driving through this & many other villages taunting the villagers with obscenities & provoking such a reaction. There would’ve been no rock-throwing unless the BOrder Police created the incident. This from Linda Gradstein’s NPR coverage just after the murder (quoted from my blog post):
At the post I wrote about Abir’s death, I also linked to another dispatch by Chris Hedges describing similar, but even more horrific provocation ending in multiple shootings of teenage children in Gaza.
And this is Gideon Levy’s account of Abir’s murder followed by my own commentary fr. the same time period:
The claim of death by a Palestinian rock is so transparently self-serving as to be ridiculous. Blame the victim, that’s all it is & it is beneath contempt. These are all arguments trotted out by the Israeli authorities & disproven at the time. In fact, it makes me wonder whether Amir is either an official representative of these authorities or merely an apologist doing their bidding inadvertently.
I have no idea what “500” you’re talking about: Israelis killed? Palestinians killed by other Palestinians? A little more precision would make it easier to follow whatever you’re trying to say.
I do not appreciate yr snarky tone. I write about what I want to write about. If you want to write about a particular subject go write about it at yr own blog & on yr own dime. I’m not stopping you. Just remember that this blog is my home. Insult the baaleh bus & you may not be invited to return.
Sorry. I will try to refrain from snarky remarks. I assure you that I am not a representative of any authorities. Just a citizen whose family, just like all Israeli families, depends on the security forces for their safety and do not appreciate unsubstantiated accusations of murder, which is a very serious charge.
I suggest the sources you provide are outdated. The headline from Haaretz, dated Jan 22, 2007 is “Girl allegedly killed by Border Police may have been hit by rock.” Here are some quotes. The emphasis is mine.
The point is, the testimony of Palestinian witnesses, as well as that of soldiers, usually is unreliable because it usually is meant to serve an interest. In the quote you made, Areen is a twelve year old girl. Not completely reliable and very easily manipulated. It is completely conceivable that Abir was killed by a rock. It wouldn’t be the first time Palestinians killed each other, on purpose or accidentally, and then blamed the Israelis.
Interestingly, recently, an Arab man grabbed a man’s gun in Jerusalem and then tried to murder the guard. this is what his friends had to say:
More unsubstantiated accusations of murder. But the whole incident was filmed by surveillance cameras, and their lies are easily exposed. The film is linked to by all the Israeli news webpages.
The man who tried to murder inocent civilians in Jerusalem is an Israeli Arab from Kfar manda. Link: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3436748,00.html
over 1,000 people honored his memory at the funeral. They insist he was murdered and the film fabricated. He was declared a shahid and his name will be added to the other “shahids” killed during October 2,000. This is their testimony when the evidence is overwhelming and on film. Yet you believe them and their “witnesses” when there is no evidence backing their claims. To them, it is always the Israelis who are to blame and it is always the Jews who are guilty of murder regardless of the evidence to the contrary. It truly saddens me that a man who identifies himself as a Jew and zionist who is interested in “tikun olam” also buys into their propaganda so easily.
Now, Ahmed Tibi is concerned that the guard who was protecting his own life, and the lives of other innocents, may have shot him after he was already down. How he would know this, I don’t know. In the film, most of the bystanders had fled by this point. Not that it matters, since a man holding a gun is still a threat even if he is on the ground. I don’t recall him being concerned about the fact that Natan Zada was obviously murdered by a mob after already being subdued and handcuffed by police.
No, I suggest that yr source is outdated. The Gideon Levy piece I linked to above was dated January 27th, 5 days after the date of yr Haaretz piece. Another problem is that you do not provide links to yr source which prevents me fr. reviewing them. So I can’t argue w. you nor attribute any validity to what you quote till I see the source.
No, it is NOT conceivable. It is only conceivable to someone like you who has an axe to grind in protecting yr beloved thuggish police fr. blame for their atrocious behavior. And I find yr claim that Abir was killed by Palestinians who then blamed Israel for the death to be offensive unless you can provide clear real (as opposed to unsubstantiated) evidence attesting to this possibility which you cannot.
And the fact that you attempt to equate the senseless murder of a 10 yr old Palestinian girl w. what may have been a Palestinian terror attack saying that Palestinians always blame Israel no matter what happens in an incident I find offensive. You attempt to divert attention fr. a repulsive act of the Border Police by linking it to an entirely different incident w. which it has nothing in common except yr own tendentious unfounded attempt to connect the two.
There is far more evidence for my claim than for yours. And why is it you don’t believe Palestinian eyewitnesses? Could it be that their senses are inferior to your Israeli ones? You’d certainly believe a Border Police officer at the scene who claimed he didn’t shoot her now wouldn’t you? But interestingly the Border Police have been curiously silent about the incident except when they at first attempted to blame Palestinians for the death w/o bringing a shred of evidence to bear. And I’ve heard fr. no actual police officer serving at the scene about what they did or saw. Isn’t that curious?
You equate Jews to Israelis above, a misnomer I object to. I do not always say Israelis are to blame. I say they are to blame when I think they are. I never said the Jerusalem attack was Israeli murder of a Palestinian. I don’t know yet what happened. When I do I will say something about it if I want to. But I find it offensive that you reduce my views to such convenient oversimplification. And I do not know who the “they” is you refer to above (“their propaganda”). Use of the term “they” in referring to the Palestinians is reductive and discriminatory much like American racists who used to (& still do) refer to African Americans as “those people.”
As indeed he should be. If the guards shot the man four times point blank after he was already down, a claim I read yesterday at Ynet I believe, then this would be obscene overkill. And do you mean to tell me there are not other examples of terror attacks in which attackers have been murdered AFTER capture or wounding viz. Maalot in which the terrorists were marched out of the bus & a few minutes later mysteriously appeared dead. Here in America we call it vigilante justice. In Israel I think they call it the Hebrew equivalent of giving an Arab his just desserts.
There is a huge difference. In the Jerusalem terror attack the guards were paid operative of the state as were the intelligence agents who murdered to Maalot terrorists. As such, they are seen by Arabs and the world as implementing the policy of the state toward Arabs. In Natan Zada’s case, the killers were Arab bystanders who’d just witnessed a right wing lunatic mow down their friends and neighbors. I don’t condone any outright murder & Natan Zada WAS murdered. But let’s not forget important distinctions when they exist as they do here.
Then Gideon Levy is outdated. Remeber, his columns are opinion, not investigative reporting. Here is the link. you can judge for yourself. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/816044.html
But I specifically said: “The point is, the testimony of Palestinian witnesses, as well as that of soldiers, usually is unreliable because it usually is meant to serve an interest.” I am not relying on testimony. I am relying on evidence as reported in a respectable newspaper, Ha’Aretz which even the coroner hired by the family concurs. I never “claimed” Abeer was killed by Palestinians, though I said it was conceivable. It is also possible she was killed by a stun grenade or a gas canister. Those are not weapons used with the intent to kill, so I seriously doubt that Abeer was murdered. The burden of proof is on those (like you) that claim it was murder. So far I haven’t seen the proof.
I think your confusing Maalot with “Egged line 300”.
I was using the case of the recent shooting in Jerusalem as to how “witnesses” are used to lie to the public. Immediately after the incident, the press reported that a terrorist tried to grab a guard’s gun and then was shot by the guard. But they added that “witnesses” claimed that the guard asked the terrorist, who was really just an innocent bystander for his ID, and when he didn’t show it to them they murdered him. Later the “witnesses” said he was murdered execution style. Here is the film at youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ouXfsd9IqQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ejpost%2Ecom%2Fservlet%2FSatellite%3Fcid%3D1186557429677%26pagename%3DJPost%252FJPArticle%252FShowFull In the end you can see how the guard from quite a distance shoots him and the terrorist falls down. At this point a bystander flees. As the terrorist falls the guard runs in the opposite direction to help his friend who was shot in the preceeding scuffle.
Why is he outdated when his article was published FIVE DAYS AFTER the article you reference?
Sfarad, the Aramin’s lawyer characterizes the coroner’s findings in a diff. Haaretz article in a way that directly contradicts the separate Haaretz article you reference.
So Amir – the Israeli courts have decided that she was killed by a rubber coated bullet and will have to pay compensation – even though no-one was held accountable. So it seems you were wrong all along. Well done.
Wouldn’t be the first time he was wrong.