In all the annals of miscarriage of justice, Israel-style, this one is right up there. Two years ago, during the Knife Intifada, an Israeli Bedouin attacked the Beersheva bus station. One soldier was killed and ten others wounded. In all the confusion, Israeli vigilante bystanders, who included both police personnel and prison guards, saw an Eritrean refugee, Haftom Zarhum, who’d come to Beersheva to renew his work visa.
Even though Eritrean refugees look nothing like Palestinians and he had no weapon, they decided that Zarhum was the terrorist and began assaulting him. Eight shots were fired into his body from almost point-blank range. They kicked him in the head and beat him senseless. Then the “piece de la resistance” of torture was the vigilante who ripped a row of metal chairs from the floor, ran over to the victim and brought the entire apparatus down on his head with full force. Though the coroner said the bullets killed him, this was certainly the coup de grâce (I don’t know French well enough to know that the opposite of grace is in this case–the word is certainly is inapt in this grisly case).
I posted about this case when it was first reported. There was tremendous soul-searching in some Israeli circles about the savagery of this attack. (I apologize for the violence in the above video–I usually eschew this approach to reporting, but this incident is so egregious I want everyone who can stomach it to watch the horrific violence and consider where it comes from and what it means.) Some Israelis were horrified by the homicidal racism which spurred this lynching.
But I knew in my heart it would all be swept under the rug. That indeed is what the Israeli justice system proposes. After all the outrage, the overwhelming force of the national security state came to bear. The police and prison authority united to protect their own. As a result, the guy (referred to as “Moyal” in the passage below) who smashed Zarhum with the chairs gets off scot-free (just after the killing he told an interviewer: “what’s to apologize for?”). The other seven defendants get off with no jail time at all. They will do community service and perhaps shed a crocodile tear or two (or not) and return to their lives:
Under the plea bargain offered, Moyal, who had worked at a shwarma sandwich shop at the bus station during the incident, will be convicted of abusing a helpless person. The penalty under law is up to seven years in prison. The original charge, of aggravated assault, carries up to 20 years imprisonment. But if the plea bargain is approved, Moyal won’t do a day behind bars, after the prosecution agreed to community service, the extent of which will be determined by the court. Moyal’s defense lawyers will also be able to demand that Moyal’s conviction be set aside…
In June 2016, a Prisons Service tribunal decided against charging prison warden Hananiya Shabbat for involvement in the mob attack on Zarhum.
In some circles they’ll even be applauded as heroes of the nation just as the IDF murderer of Abd al-Fatah a-Sharif, Elor Azarya, was hailed as the conquering hero after the IDF brought him up on relatively minor charges in the aftermath of the cold-blooded execution. They’ll say of the Beersheva killers: “well you never know with these people. He could very well have been a terrorist. You did what you thought best to protect us.”
But make no mistake, this was an act of terrorism, cold-blooded vigilante lynching like what Southern whites did to Blacks a century ago. It doesn’t matter what the killers thought they were doing or how confusing the situation might have been. This was blood vengeance. And the Israeli justice system’s whitewashing of the legal case with these pathetic sentences is state sanctioning of such terrorism.
This is the fate of African refugees in Israel. Viewed as little more than infiltrators. A spreading cancer, toxic to the Jewish state and its pure bloodlines. Instead of, if not welcoming, them, at least being cognizant of the Jewish people’s historic responsibility to treat strangers with a minimum of dignity, they are hated, imprisoned, and expelled, contrary to international humanitarian law. This is but one of many reasons I believe it’s a misnomer to call Israel a Jewish state. It ignores or even disdains some of the most cherished traditions of Judaism, in favor of a truculent, violent, even homicidal version of the religion, which I prefer to call Judeanism. Personally, I find this distorted religion to be little more than pagan idolatry, the worship of supposedly historical myths, relics and ruins, in favor of real living people and ethical values.
Comment really seems superfluous.
@Richard
“this was an act of terrorism, cold-blooded vigilante lynching”
Richard, please.
The security guard shot and mortally wounded Mr. Zarhum.
Hot blooded vigilantes than tried to attack Zarhum once he was on the ground, and bystanders and security guys tried to stop the vigilantes.
This was neither terrorism, nor a cold-blooded lynching.
Basta!
And you are not a doctor. Basta!
and who died and gave you the right to shut dissent – the truth is hard to swallow –
israel might have a bit more pull than the whites of long bygone south africa and yet long and short the end game will be the same , sadly , Elisabeth deares
I give up trying to understand your writings. I have tried to make sense of them in the past and failed.
yu “want” to forget the end game in south africa’s APARTHEID, Israel may BUY MORE TIME BY BLACKMAILING OR STRONG ARMING “SOME OF THE PEOPLE” BUT IT WILL NOT WORK FOR ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME. AND BOTTOMLINE, APARTHEID DOES HAVE A SHORT LIFE SPAN.
so ignoring the lynching that was graced with community service does have a short life span
after all the ignorant terrorists ungrateful living inside israel IS 20% OR 1.5 MILLIONS. how long will you ignore their existence . so no basta is nothing more than you doing the same by shutting dissent. you can say bizillion times bastas, it will not erase the lynching, how come these 9 did not get the same treatment the palestinians got for their lynching. how come YOU DID NOT SAY BASTA THEN
It seems you confuse me with “Doctor John”.
Doctor John gets chutzpah points. Truly, a indefatigable warrior for Zion, he is.
Anyway, promptly violating my own stricture here, but I am reminded of that video of the rather pathetic murder of a fourteen year old girl a couple of years back.
You may remember. She and a friend had indeed carried out a ‘terrorist attack.’ No doubt about that. They had stabbed some elderly man (who turned out to be Palestinian) in the neck with a pair of scissors. He lived, perhaps needless to say.
In the film, she’s kind of dancing down the street in terror, lunging at anyone who approaches her with the scissors.
The thing is, she’s a fourteen year old girl — with a pair of scissors. If it were me, I’d look for a blanket and see if anyone wants to help me rush her. Honestly: she’s a child. You can see it.
The mighty warriors for Zion shoot her down. Wrose, as she’s lying there, another mighty warrior summons up his courage and makes this kind of crab-wise approach to shoot her crumpled (pathetic, eighty pound) body at point blank range.
That, of course, wasn’t a crime at all. It was brave Israelis fighting terrorism.
It is, however, an utterly sickening video. And seriously: off planet Israel — does anyone have a blanket? You don’t SHOOT her.
[deleted: off-topic again]
Two wrongs make a right, eh, John?
I guess as long as Israel holds the death toll to under thirty million, she’s home free.
To be fair, it is true that in Israel, there have been innumberable incidents of Jews murdering Palestinians without any consequences at all. And even the exceptions…
There was that soldier who was filmed murdering a Palestinian as he lay on the ground — how many months did he get, and has he been pardoned yet?
There was ‘Captain R,’ who openly murdered a thirteen year old school girl — and never served a day behind bars. There was the reservist who simply lined up six Arabs on the street, murdered them, and waited for the police. He supposedly got five years — but died in an auto accident while on ‘furlough.’
So seriously: community service really would be about right. After all, the killers THOUGHT they were nobly lynching a genuine terrorist. Surely Richard isn’t demanding disproportionate punishment. Is murdering an untermenschen actually a serious offence in Israel? I see no reason to think it is.
Richard’s from Washington State; surely he wouldn’t demand someone get five years for selling an ounce of marijuana. In Israel, was this a major crime? I think not.
I even remember a case where border police lay in an ambush, waiting for 3 local boys who had the habit of crawling to a hole in the fence to pick herbs. They shot and killed one.
‘I even remember a case where border police lay in an ambush, waiting for 3 local boys who had the habit of crawling to a hole in the fence to pick herbs. They shot and killed one.’
Yeah. Thinking about it, that’s another element that bugs me. It’s not just the killings per se; it’s the manifest cruelty, the DESIRE to hurt that turns me from mere disapproval to true outrage. I could encounter someone, say, being for Ulster returning to Ireland, or for it remaining part of the United Kingdom, and regard either proposition with relative equanimity. ‘Okay, that’s a point, but…’
Israel is a different matter. It’s like watching a little boy pull the wings off a fly — over and over, on a national scale, and it’s all to go on forever.
@ Colin
I think you’re mixing up the Ami Popper-case with another, after all there are so may cases ….. Popper lined up and killed 7 Arabs, he got 7 life sentences (according to wiki muted to 40 years), he didn’t die in a car accident, but his wife and one of his kids died in a car accident when he was on a furlough, he’st still alive, and even got another furlough to marry his third wife.
‘I think you’re mixin up the Ami Popper-case with another…’
Quite likely I am mixing up the cases. There are indeed so many, and the theme is always the same.
You are corroborated in what you say by the soldiers themselves:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-weighing-plea-deal-for-soldiers-who-killed-palestinian-1.5905960
@Deir Yassin
Name one Palestinian who is in a Palestinian jail for killing a Jew.
@ Dr. John: Your hasbara is showing. And it’s might embarrassing to look at.
First of all, any Palestinian who kills, kills an Israeli, not a Jew. And if you use this word again when you mean Israeli I will consider it a banning offense. Do not confuse the two terms, especially not deliberately, as you have done.
There are hundreds of Israelis who’ve murdered Palestinians and not served a day in jail. And I hate to repeat myself, but for you I’m happy to: six times as many Palestinians are killed by Israelis as Israelis are killed by Palestinians.
You’ve worn out your welcome I’m afraid and gotten tiresome. Either step up your hasbara game or there may be a ticket waiting for you at the airport–a paid ticket from Hasbara Central to return to Ben Gurion.
“First of all, any Palestinian who kills, kills an Israeli, not a Jew”
Your sentence here is syntactically confused. Palestinians kills all sorts, honour killings, snitches etc and one who kills an Israel is not killing a Jew?
An Israeli is not a Jew? Is this how you distinguish that an Israeli is not Jewish?
Sounds awfully racist to me with a total lack of logic,
@ yisrael: Palestinians, when they kill an Israeli are not trying to kill a Jew. Their grievance is not against Judaism. It is against the State of Israel. A state, not a religion. Now if you want to argue there is no difference that’s fine. Then we put you in the same category as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Vatican, Iran, etc. All theocracies in which, if there is democracy, it takes a back seat to religion; and makes a particular religion & its adherents superior to those who practice a different religion.
So take your pick…which is it?
‘Name one Palestinian who is in a Palestinian jail for killing a Jew…’
Palestinians who kill Jews rarely live to get to jail — and they certainly wouldn’t be allowed to go to a Palestinian one.
…and Richard notwithstanding, there is a real distinction between what happens if one kills a gentile in Israel and what happens if one kills a Jew. I think you’re entirely correct to make that distinction. After all, no doubt there are Palestinian murderers in Palestinian jails — but not ones whose victims were Jews.
What a great idea Doctor John: The Palestinians should raid Israel and kidnap and lock up all those killing IDF soldiers. They can also be sent here, to The Hague.
We have seen often enough how Israel invades every nook and corner of the Occupied Territories and kills every person possibly involved in an attack, or his cousin, or a passer-by for that matter, so who would you suggest the PA put in jail? And let me tell you: As soon as the PA stops arresting and jailing militants who plan attacks on Israelis you will know the difference. Show some gratitude to an occupied people who actually collaborate to keep their occupiers safe! Surely a thing never seen before in history. But brainwashed Yossi Israeli keeps whining about being such a victim.
‘…And let me tell you: As soon as the PA stops arresting and jailing militants who plan attacks on Israelis you will know the difference. Show some gratitude to an occupied people who actually collaborate to keep their occupiers safe!…’
Oh, it’s been seen before alright. Just about every nation the Nazis occupied had collaborationist forces — and usually, powerful, vigorous ones.
Where Israel is dysfunctional is that she abuses and humiliates her Petains: see how they treat Abbas. If they weren’t so dysfunctional, they’d be building these folks up, making us praise them as great statesmen and arm their militias, etc.
But Israel isn’t functional. Much of what she does is horribly self-destructive. I say horribly, because it is her victims that suffer worst of all. They CAN’T submit; they’re not allowed to. The little boy just comes along and starts pulling the wings off the flies again. It’s really awful to watch.
Representatives of the Resistance in Europe keeping the German army and German citizens from being attacked would be the equivalent. Or do you equate the PA with outright collaborators like the war-time Dutch Nazi party?
‘Representatives of the Resistance in Europe keeping the German army and German citizens from being attacked would be the equivalent. Or do you equate the PA with outright collaborators like the war-time Dutch Nazi party?’
I’m not familiar with the precise history of the Dutch Nazi Party. The PA would perhaps be more like Vichy France’s government; pathetically trying to exact concessions from an indifferent or even malevolent occupier without any means of coercing that occupier.
Like the PA, Petain’s Vichy began with considerable genuine popular support, and again like the PA, it had hopes of realizing some kind of national regeneration. However, in both cases, this broke down in the face of their inability to deliver any genuine improvement or restoration of national independence. Both found themselves confronted with an occupier who demanded that they simply function as a kind of reservation police.
Particularly back in the Oslo/Yasser Arafat era, the PLO bears a very strong resemblance to Vichy as of 1941/42, and now, in its increasingly visible impotence and inability to function as anything other than a conduit for the demands of the occupier, it looks a lot like the Vichy regime of 1943/44.