חשיפה: אדם חסין (צעיר ישראלי שיצא להילחם בדאע”ש) עצור בכורדיסטן מאז קיץ 2015 ונאשם ברצח
Israeli media has been trying to report the case of a 20 year-old Israeli-Kurdish Jew who left Israel under false pretenses to visit his grandparents in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Instead, he enlisted with the Peshmerga to fight ISIS there. All went well until someone locally discovered he was an Israeli citizen. You can imagine that such news doesn’t go over too well in much of the region. Not only does Israel’s reputation for cruelty against the Arab states in the region go before it, but Israeli intelligence penetrates these movements as deeply as possible. One individual called him out for his deception and threatened to kill him (though the assailant was unarmed). The Israeli, who was armed, shot and murdered the Kurd.
The Israeli was arrested in 2015, charged with murder and faces the death penalty. He’s been imprisoned for 18 months in Kurdistan. No one reported this story until far-right Druze MK Ayoob Kara, discovered it, visited the prisoner’s father and posted it to Facebook. Kara had gone far off the reservation, since Israeli authorities hadn’t wanted the story reported. It’s unclear whether Israel was negotiating for his release and felt publicity would damage the possibility to free him; or whether the authorities didn’t want egg on their faces for permitting an Israeli to enter a dangerous Islamist combat zone and wreak havoc there. In the past, I broke Israeli censorship reporting that Avera Mengistu, an Ethiopian-Israeli had crossed the border into Gaza and been captured there. The Israeli government has permitted him to languish there for several years and refused Hamas offers to negotiate his release. Given that Kurdish Israelis are a minority within the discriminated Mizrahi community, it’s entirely possible secrecy was intended to avoid pressure to negotiate his release.
It is illegal for Israelis to visit Iraq, though a significant portion of the Israeli Mizrahi population (among them IDF former generals,Binyamin Ben Eliezer and Dan Halutz) originates there.
It’s no wonder that virtually all of the press coverage of this incident takes Kara to task for endangering Hassin’s life. None of the media have asked why Israel permitted a citizen to leave the country to fight with the Kurds. I should note that a number of Israelis, both Jews and Palestinians, have fought on both sides of the conflict. One Palestinian even flew a glider from Israel-occupied Golan into ISIS controlled Syria to fight. An Israeli Jew left to fight with the Peshmerga. As far as I know, despite violating Israeli law in doing so, she was not prosecuted. Which attests to the racist double standards inherent in Israeli society and law. Jews can visit Lebanon, Iraq, etc and never be prosecuted. While Israeli Palestinian MKs can visit Lebanon or Syria and have their heads handed to them on a platter.
Kara posted to Facebook the prisoner’s name, Adam Hassin. He visited with his father, Ilan, and posted a picture of the meeting. I’ve posted the censored Jerusalem Post article. There are also Hebrew language articles which also have been censored. H/t to Yanik who first alerted me to the story.
I agree that this type of gag order is really stupid. The information is probably freely available in the Arab world and elsewhere. If the Israelis want to keep quiet about their efforts to free him, or stop ministers from publicly discussing it, fine. But a gag order?
Of course, I don’t agree with the rest of your spin, the long sad story that you weave, tying the story to discrimination or incompetent law enforcement.
I doubt the information was “freely available” otherwise it would have surfaced months ago.
The reason could be as well to allow them to release him “under the radar” w/o a need to explain why. Just like with Avera Mengistu who is mentally ill. secrecy would allow Hamas to do the human act and not keep a sick person as a bargaining chip but once the genie was out of the bottle, the asked some ridicules demands.
@ Jim:
More “ridiculous” than the 1,000 prisoners Israel released for Shalit? Of course not. Only ridiculous because Mengistu is a poor Ethiopian shlub who, to Bibi, isn’t worth a bucket of warm piss. Sorry to be so crude about it. But Israeli racism is just that–crude.
Hamas claimed that they let that ethiopean move to Egypt.
the ethiopean willignly moved into Gaza, big difference than Shalit who was a soldier
@ Yoaoc: Mengistu was mentally ill. You can’t say someone who is mentally ill had the “will” to do anything. But Israeli surveillance saw his crossing the border & did nothing to stop him. And Israel has done nothing to bring about his return. Every Israeli citizen regardless of how they got somewhere has the right to expect their country will make every possible effort to get you returned home. Unless you’re Black…
Racism is one option
Another option is that while Shalit was a soldier captured while on duty, Mengistu was a citizen that illegally crossed the fence to Gaza.
I think the second option is more likely, especially as in the first substantial prisoner exchange deal in which Israel released dozens of convicted Palestinians for one Israeli soldier, that soldier was actually a an immigrant from Libya (a “Mizrachi”) named Avraham Amram
http://www.mynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4493162,00.html
And this was in 1978, when prejudice against Mizrachi Jews was much more prevalent and salient than today.
Also, if I (an Israeli Jewish citizen just like the one you wrote about here) will decide to join the Kurds I will easily do it by going there via a third country. The Shabac doesn’t have any devices that can read minds and if I don’t share my plans with others, the Shabac (or the police or anyone else) will have no way of knowing about my intentions and thus no one will stop me. You seem to give too much fredit to the capabilities of the Shabac.
The same goes for any citizen of any western country. Did you know that it is estimated that close to 500 people have left Belgium to join ISIS?
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/21/europe/belgium-terror-fight-molenbeek/
One more thing: an armed person who kills an unarmed person who attacked him is not necessarily guilty of murder. Ask the jury in Florida that acquitted George Zimmerman who shot to death the unarmed 17 year old Trayvon Martin.
@ Amico:
If crossing the fence was illegal why did Israeli surveillance clearly record what he did & make no effort to stop him?
You are clearly not Mizrahi if you believe prejudice against Mizrahim is any less prevalent than it was in 1978. I know thousands of Mizrahim who would vehemently disagree.
The Shabak has many more “devices” enabling it to know where Israelis are traveling than you know. It is not “easy” to evade the Shabak in trying to fight for or against ISIS. And if it is easy, then Shabak is doing it’s job very poorly.
As for Belgium, Israel has a far more intrusive intelligence apparatus than Belgium. Not to mention that Israel has far less citizens likely to want to go to the battlefront. So what is Israel’s excuse for not stopping them?
Your comment is oddly virtually the same as an earlier comment by lepxii (using different words). Do NOT repeat arguments which have already been made by other commenters. If you do, I will begin to suspect that you are the same person.
You’re defending the exoneration of George Zimmerman, which 90% of Americans found a miscarriage of justice?? Is this the standard you wish us to uphold for Hassin? That Israelis around the world should be permitted to kill unarmed men with impunity? That’s good to know & tells us a lot about your own ignorance & prejudices.
They have asked for 50 murderers just to sit to the table so your Shalit 1,000 prisoners is just a smoke.
Amazed to see your support Hamas side on keeping two ill people as bargaining chips.
@ Jim: One man’s murderer is another’s freedom fighter.
Are you really arguing that Hamas should release its 2 captives and not seek anything in return? When the only way it has to attain the release of Palestinian prisoners is to use such exchanges? You are an utter fool.
Do not comment further in this thread.
“why Israel permitted a citizen to leave the country to fight with the Kurds?”
That is an odd question.
Why are there 150 US citizen (likely low estimate) fighting FOR ISIS?
Source – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/29/iraq-and-syria-how-many-foreign-fighters-are-fighting-for-isil/
@ Jim: 150 out of 370-million? Surely you jest.
Israel is a national security state which has absolute control over citizens traveling abroad. You can only exit in a very few limited ways. The U.S. is a large country with 370-million people & hundreds of thousands of miles of coastline, international borders, & modes of transportation permitting people to travel abroad. I’d say that per capita the number of Israelis fighting for ISIS or the Kurds is far larger than the number of Americans fighting on either side.
“which has absolute control over citizens traveling abroad” – don’t be ridicules. Have you heard on connection flights? This is how American got to visit Cuba for all the years it was illegal.
The US population is 325 million not 370 and people don’t have to sneak out on a submarine to go to Syria. They fly right off JFK or whatever other airport, just like Israelis fly out of TLV. No one can control where people travel once they have left.
Your per-capite guess is a wild one which is based on nothing. Not to mention, all Israelis who fight for ISIS are Muslim Arabs not Jews (my guess but I hope we can agree on that) and the Kurds fight is as just as that of the Palestinians so I’m pretty sure you support it.
If the Israeli shot and killed an assailant who was threatening to kill him, did he “murder” him?
@ Chen: The Israeli was armed. The other man wasn’t. So yes, that’s the definition of murder.
The definition of murder does not address whether the actor or the decedent were armed. An armed woman can shoot and kill an unarmed who is trying to rape her, for instance, and that is absolutely not murder. Same goes for a man shooting and killing his assailant,at least under the facts you provided.
Demagoguery at its absolute worse.
Israel’s law enforcement takes place when required, by the essence of felonies.
The protected value in visiting enemy countries is to prevent collaboration with such enemies of Israel.
Meanwhile, the only double standard I have encountered in this article was yours. Why is it ok for the arab world to prosecute visitors of Israel, while the prohibition of Israel to visit such countries comes to you as a natural *response* by arav countries? The truth is exactly opposite. As can be demonstrated by Israel’s relationship with Iran until the 80’s, Turkey, or any other non-malicious country, no prohibition was set on visiting such countries. Meanwhile, Israel from the day of establishment was targeted by Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Syria, and while trying to protect human right to the maximum extent possible, had to limit visitations of such offenders, to prevent espionage.
Now if you want to put things right – correct your article so that the actual prohibition came from the arabs and the response to violent came from Israel.
By the way, you can notice world cup 70′ and 74′ participation for more information on historical relations between arab countries and Israel.
@ Doron: Why, it’s the latest hasbara addition fresh off the plane from Ben Gurion! Welcome to you for your brief stay here. Make sure you read the comment rules carefully before publishing any further comments here.
Yes absolutely. Trying to protect human rights for the Jewish majority. For the Palestinian minority? Not so much.
Espionage? The other way around bud. The espionage if far more intense by Israel against Arab states. If anything they have to worry about such penetration more than Israel does of Arabs penetrating it.
Don’t you dare tell me what to do or write, or your stay here will be exceedingly short.
Doron is absolutely right.
And ‘hasbara’ means explaining unlike the anti-israeli-propaganda which is mostly lies, which you are obviously fed by and spreading yourself. I bet you never even been to Israel.. yet so quick to assume Israel, the only democracy in the region, is the “bad guy” in the story.
how can you be so blind to the truth? can’t you conect the historical dots? Israel always wanted and still seeks peace, we just came to the sad realization that the Arabs in most Muslim countries are brain washed and hell bent on annihilating the Jews.
“Don’t you dare tell me what to do or write, or your stay here will be exceedingly short.”
nice one… you want freedom of speech yet threaten to gag the opposition?
hypocritical and typical for haters
@ Tom Cohen: How dost thou err? Let me count the ways:
Wrong. Not in the contemporary political context. It almost always means ‘propaganda’ or ‘advocacy’ which, in Israel’s case, are one and the same.
Wrong again.
Wrong yet again.
Wrong, dare I say it, yet again??
Hmm, wrong again? How many times can you do this?
Oh boy, this is getting tiresome…wrong again.
You violated the comment rules, which you clearly didn’t bother to read, though it clearly says before publishing your first comment to do so. Hence, you are moderated.
People can travel anywhere with “permission”. Specifically almost any citizen (who isn’t arrested or has a judicial order against him) can leave the country freely. Once you are out of the country – to Turkey perhaps, or some other destination, then Israel has absolutely no say in what you do and you can move on into other countries (of course you may be prevented by the 3rd country if you are crossing via an organized crossing, etc.). The only say Israel has – is criminal proceedings once the person gets back.
@ lepxii: That’s naive at best. If the Shabak or Mossad suspects you are going somewhere it doesn’t want you to go it has multiple ways it can prevent you from going. And has done this numerous times. The reason you believe the pipedream you wrote above is true is that it applies to Israeli Jews. But certainly not to Israeli Palestinians, whose conditions you’d know next to nothing about.
You are correct in stating that if the Shabak or some other apparatus discovers your intention (and they admittedly follow security risks to the Jewish state) – they might foil (by arresting or other means) the trip ahead of time.
However – Arab or Jew – if you tell no one, fly routinely abroad (e.g. on a normal vacation trip – not to some really oddball destination that is suspicious) – and then from there re-route to Syria/Iraq or where ever – this can’t be stopped and the “permission” is irrelevant.
There are several Israeli arabs in Syria/Iraq at the moment. Some were stopped before they went, but many succeeded in crossing over (mostly via Turkey. 1 case via the Golan (the paraglider)). According to this source –
http://news.walla.co.il/item/2921195
Estimates put it at 100-150 (not sure how correct this is).
There were more than 10 cases of Israeli arabs returning (usually because they wanted to return to Israel) from Syria/Iraq and being tried in Israel in criminal courts.
@ lepxii: Israelis are the most surveilled citizens in the world, specifically Palestinians, both inside Israel & in the Territories. That’s what Unit 8200 does. It spies on you. All of you. So they suspect all Palestinians of being a security problem. THey are combing through the communications of every Palestinian seeking any signs of security issues. They could know what every Palestinian had for breakfast or what he said to his wife just before going to sleep (not exactly, but if they did any of these things using electronic communication they would know). And if they suspect you of anything they’ll use more intrusive means.
Any Palestinian traveling outside Israel raises grounds for suspicion. If he or she is traveling to certain countries or cities, that’s ground for deeper scrutiny. THere are only so many travel paths to the battlefront. You don’t travel to Syria or Iraq via Monaco or New York. There are certain key cities that all such fighters travel to. If a security agency doesn’t know these things & flag travelers going to them then they’re inept. The Shin Bet is not inept. At least not in these matters (in other matters, yes it is inept).
So whether you tell anyone or not where you’re traveling the Shabak will know, if you’re Palestinian. And if they don’t know they will detain you till you tell them. So again, yes, Shabak has absolute control over Palestinian travel. It knows where you are going. And if it isn’t sure what you will do when you get there the Mossad has agents in most of the places they would travel to. And if they don’t have agents, there are other countries who are Israeli allies who will help monitor them when they get there.
Do not comment further in this thread.
[comment deleted: This is the 3rd comment saying virtually the same thing. Do read comments in the thread preceding yours. Do NOT repeat arguments. THat is a comment rule violation.]
[comment deleted: this is the 4th comment in this thread regurgitating the same argument. I rebut arguments once. After that, such comments which violate comment rules may be deleted.]
That is true that Israel can not control what Israelis do abroad. 🙂
On Interpol’s wanted list are 80 people whose nationality is Israel. Of them only one is searched by Israeli police. For comparisons sake on the same list are 6 Finns and Finland searches 4 of them. The population of Finland is about the same as the amount of Israeli Jews. Those on the list of Israelis are Jews (concluded by their names). By the way 61 Germans of those 81 million German citizens are searched by Interpol and 162 US citizens of those 320 million Americans.
It is a per capita ranking which the Start-up nation obviously leads, but doesn’t brag of that achievement.
Surely we can ask without be blamed as anti-Semitics why Israel has as citizens so many East European crime organization members and people charged of frauds.
“the racist double standards inherent in Israeli society and law”.
ISIS is the most violent terror group on the world. they slaughter almost the whole Yazidi people and butchered tens or hundreds of thousands more.
the whole world knows and aware of this.
So for israel it is common sense not to prosecute men and women who brave enough to join the Kurds to fight evil and by that maybe save more lives.
if someone expects israel to prosecute the girl who wanted to save yazidi women form being raped and sold at the market to the highest bid, and that someone call this policy “racist”, it says more about this someone as a human being than says about Israel
@ yorker: This is not a site devoted to Yazidis. Your e mail address seems to indicate that this is your cause. That makes your commment off topic.
It is not Israel’s job to save the Yazidi people. Nor is it Israel’s job to permit it’s citizens to fight for the Yazidis. Unless Israel wishes to get involved in yet another Mideast genocide/tragedy in which it has no direct interest, and thereby screw up another front in Mideast conflict. The tragedy that befell Yazidis was not Israel’s fault. But if you want Israelis to fight for the Yazidis you should ask Israel as a nation to invade Iraq to do so.
Do not post off topic comments. It’s a comment rule violation.
Without repeating myself and others here, I would point that putting aside the issue of monitoring to what purpose Israeli citizens exit the country , the Shaback is much less capable than you seem to believe. Hell, the Shabac doesn’t even manage to stop Palestinians that attempt to go and stab Israeli’s. And that’s even in those cases that those stabbers published their intentions on Facebook! not to mention failing to prevent the murder of an Israeli prime minister when they had quite a few intel sources within the immediate surroundings of the murderer.
Mossad, who is suppose to be even more powerful than the Shabak also had a host of very stupid failures.
And I see you failed to understand my comment about the trial of Zimerman. Of course Zimerman should have been convicted! at least for manslaughter. The point is he wasn’t. 12 American citizens decided to acquit him. Only a very naive person will not see that he wasn’t because his victim was black and he was white. So, before talking about prejudice against Mizrachi Jews in Israel, you should be concerned with the much more grave discrimination against African Americans in your own country. Discrimination of which that Zimmerman case is just one example.
Discrimination against Mizrachi Jews in Israel is minimal and is gradually disappearing. Its a matter of simple mathematics. Currently 28% of the mariges in Israel are “mixed” between Ashkenazi and Mizrachi (and the numbers are on the rise since the sixties (Barbara S. Okun, Orna Khait-Marelly. 2006. Socioeconomic Status and Demographic Behavior of Adult Multiethnics: Jews in Israel).For example of such a “mix” is the Israeli minister of justice, Ayelet Shakaed who’s mother is of Iraqi decent. She is just one example of many “Mizrachi” (or “mixed”) Jews that reached key positions in Israel. Other examples are Moshe Kahlon, the current minister of Finances, the current IDF chief of staff (and quite a few of this predecessors), the current chief of the Israeli police, the former (up to very recently) head of the Shabac, and some of the richest most influential people in Israel, such as Yitzhak Tshuva, Haim Saban, Lev Leviev, the Nimrodi family etc. Moreover, in Olmert’s government (2006-2009) the majority of the ministers were of Mizrachi decent. In the governments since then their proportion went down but still currently close to 50% of the ministers have at least one Mizrachi parent.
@ Amico:
Which is exactly what you are doing.
That failure happened 20 years ago. You’re bringing up an ancient failure as if it’s relevant to today’s Shabak?
12 largely white jurors from the Deep South refused to convict a white man who killed a Black man. Wow, that’s incredible! Never happened before. Does this have anything to do with how justice functions in the rest of America? No. The minority of Americans live in the Deep South and its justice system does not reflect locales in the majority of the rest of the country. Nor does it reflect justice at the federal level.
Are you daft? You live in one of the most racist nations of all western democracies (not that Israel is one). And you profess to call America more racist? Of course I am “concerned” (more than concerned actually) with American racism and only an ignorant dolt like you who hasn’t bothered to read the posts I’ve written on the subject would stick his foot so squarely in his mouth as you have. But racism is far more brutal, violent, and prevalent than here.
Instead of the children’s toy train who repeats endlessly, “I think I can, I think I can,” you repeat “I know it’s true, I know it’s true;” without having any basis in fact to support your claim. Ask any of the scores of Mizrahi academics and political activists who’ve written hundreds of books (try Smadar Lavie’s latest book for starters) and articles proving the exact opposite of what you claim. And you’re more of an expert on the subject than they BECAUSE???
I don’t care how many Mizrahim are intermarrying with Ashkenazi. That doesn’t end racism. Further, offering examples of successful Mizrahim is anecdotal evidence. It also makes them your token Mizrahi.
I’m going to start with you and tell other commenters with similar MOs the same: you may comment twice in any thread. Do not publish a third comment in any thread. With two comments you have than enough time & space to outline your argument fully. I do not want to spend all my time rebutting comments from the hasbara brigade. In other words, you are done in this thread.
“you may comment twice in any thread” – I hope you will enforce this equally on all commentators. Seems you have double standards and your comments rules do not apply to commentators with a certain agenda.
@Jim: That’s right. The rule applies to those who force me to spend inordinate amounts of time rebutting the nonsense they post, correcting their errors or pointing out prejudices. Commenters who agree with me almost never post more than once in a thread. So there’s no need for such a warning to them. Even when they disagree with a commenter like you they rarely post more than twice. It’s always the hasbaroids who abuse the.privilege. Hence why it specially applies to.them.
[comment deleted: another comment rule violations. I don’t entertain challenges to my comment editing. Comments must deal with the substance of the post.]
what about the gas and submarine issue. Please write something bout that