Face of Facism: Kahanist MK Boasts of Beating, Pissing on Bedouin Family

Links to my pieces and interviews about the Israeli elections:

Middle East Eye: Israel election: West must turn back on Netanyahu’s neofascist government

Two prior posts I published:

• Nations Dither in Face of Israeli Fascism
• Netanyahu Wins Sixth Term as Prime Minister

Radio/video interviews:

The News with Paul DeRienzo
MuslimTV
Flashpoints (KPFA)
Upfront (KPFA morning news)

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* *UPDATE: I have learned from a source with direct knowledge, that Almog Cohen (see below) is not featured in the image below, despite his claims to the contrary. The latter’s claims (see below) that these Israeli Bedouin victims are physically “under him” are also false.  He possibly was at the protest.  He may have beaten other protestors.  But he’s offered no proof he had anything to do with this beating, as he claims.  It’s possible he may have assaulted them later, away from the photographer who took the picture below. But again, that’s not proven either.  So if we were to categorize his claims, they would earn a FALSE rating.

So, you liberal Zionists–you want to claim that only 10% of Israelis voted for fascism, somehow kashering this election?  Not so fast.  Today, we’ll take a look at Almog Cohen, a former Border Police thug who will be entering the coming Knessett as an MK from Bezalel Smotrich’s Kahanist Religious Zionism Party.  He’s come a long way from beating Bedouins to the Knesset plenum.  Once he wore a uniform and pissed on “Arabs.”  Today, he gets to piss on them (metaphorically) in Israel’s highest legislative body.

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Let’s go back a decade to November 2013. At that time, an Israeli right-wing government proposed “relocating” (i.e. expelling) Negev Bedouins from “illegal” (i.e. inconvenient) communities in the Negev, which the government wanted swept away in order to Judaize the region with Jewish settlements.  It was called the Prawer Plan, a glorified attempt at ethnic cleansing.  After the Bedouin and their supporters raised a furor over the plan, it was shelved.

There were multiple protests in the Negev by Bedouin themselves.  They were called Days of Rage. At one of these, a father and his two young sons, Taleb Abu Freikh, and Rauf and Nidal, joined a protest and, when it heated up, decided to leave.

Eat dirt

Witnesses say the violence was spurred by mistarvim, undercover Israeli police disguised as “Arabs.” The standard procedure is that they commence or incite violence amongst protestors, providing the police with the excuse they need to violently suppress the demonstration. In this circumstance, mounted police trampled demonstrators underfoot, tear gas canisters were fired directly at them (against regulations which are largely ignored in the field), many of whom were children. In the midst of this mayhem, Taleb Abu Freikh proceeded with his sons to a bus stop to travel home.

Border Police, acting more like Brownshirts than law enforcement, were looking for someone to beat to a pulp and chose this particular family.  The following account is from John Brown’s reporting in the Israeli publication, Local Call.

Without any provocation, they handcuffed the three, forced them to the dirt, ground their faces in it, kicked them in the head till the father lost consciousness.  The soldiers debated whether he was dead, and one of them said to the others: we ought to put a bullet in their heads.  Another said: wake him up.  When they did, they began kicking him again.  They kicked the sons in the groin and fired a stun grenade directly at one of them, whose back was burned.  Then as the climax to this thuggery, they sang “Happy Birthday” as they pissed on them.  They accompanied all this while hurling racist slogans at the victim:

“Let’s give them each a bullet in the head.” “Go back to Saudi Arabia.” “We need to transfer [expel] them…to Arab countries.” “Soon they’ll fuck you in jail, stinking Arab son of a bitch.”

This isn’t merely perverse. It isn’t just demeaning. It’s the behavior of wild ravening beasts devoid of any humanity or decency.  This is a country, and these are who it tasks with protecting it?  What sort of country is that?  Not to mention: what sort of Jews are we who are implicated, even from a distance, in this monstrosity?

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When they brought the detainees to the commanding officer, he told them that everything from then on was filmed on video and they were to cease the beating.  Then, bloody and maimed, they were arrested and brought to the local police station. There he collapsed. Three police officers were summoned and an ambulance took him to the Beersheba emergency room.  While still in the ambulance they continued hurling insults called them “stinking Arabs” and continued the beating.  He was shocked at these Russian Jews who had never in their lives known a Bedouin. How could they have any idea who or what he was?  He knew that if they did, if they visited his home, they could never treat him like this.

At the hospital, none of his family were permitted to see him.  He was tended to while shackled both by his hands and feet.  All of which violated standards of medical ethics. When a nurse arrived to give him an injection for the pain, he requested privacy.  The police in his hospital room began beating him again, taunting him: filthy Arab, why do you need privacy?” The nurse said nothing.

They were falsely charged with stone-throwing.  During the night, he remained in his urine-stained clothing.  The next morning they were brought before a judge, accused of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.  However, Taleb raised his hand to show the judge that he had lost two fingers in an earlier work accident and could not grasp a stone.  To which the prosecution offered no response.  The judge then dismissed the charges.  When the prosecution appealed to the regional court, it rejected the appeal. Taleb had suffered bleeding in his eye, a broken nose and bruises over his entire body.

Demanding rights and justice: for naught

He then filed a complaint with the police investigative unit.  This angered the police.  After visiting Hebron for business purposes, he was stopped at a checkpoint and questioned. His two companions were told to leave, but they refused.  Finally, he was released and they went on their way. But they were followed by a police vehicle which eventually blocked their path.  They again interrogated him, after which they sent him on his way.

A few months later, police came to his home to arrest two West Bank workers employed to build a fence around his house.  They were arrested for being in Israel illegally.  The workers were well known in the village and worked there for years without any problem.  Again, he was summoned to the police station and charged with illegally employing the workers.  After torturing a citizen, the police are brazen enough to believe they can continue to harass and persecute him in this “liberal humane democracy” its supporters and apologists present to the world.

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I posted on Facebook my own acerbic comment playing on the Hebrew name of the Religious Zionism party: Tzionut Datit.  Instead, I wrote Hishtinut Datit (השתינות דתית “Religious Pissing”). To me, what this Orthodox Jewish cop did was pissing on Jewish values.

Speaking of Facebook, it regularly slaps content restrictions on images that reflect poorly on Israeli forces inflicting suffering on Palestinians. They did so like clockwork regarding the image of the Border Police torturing the al-Touri family.  See the accompanying image of the restricted content message. Almog Cohen, the torturer, features the same image with no restriction. Why the double standard?

A few rotten apples fallacy

Please don’t anyone dare tell me these were “rotten apples” who don’t represent Israel.  They wore the uniform of the Israel Border Police.  They were investigated and cleared by the State prosecutor.  They ARE The state.  And their goal that night was not just to beat a few Bedouin to a pulp. It was to send a message of terror to all the other uppity Bedouin who had the temerity to believe they could petition state authorities as citizens in a “democracy.”  No, this was to tell them: forget about that. We rule here and you will have no mercy from us. So protest at your peril.

In dismissing the case, the state prosecutor invented a lie that the visors the thugs were wearing obscured their faces preventing identifying the attackers (you can clearly see the face of one of the suspects in the image above).  Instead of doing what such a figure would do in a real democracy under the rule of law, he had a preconceived outcome and sought reasons, even fictitious ones, to arrive at it.  Standard Israeli practice in virtually all such cases.

Judeo-torturer to the Knesset

That’s why Cohen, the future MK, came forward on election night to boast of his role.  Not only did he know he would suffer no consequences, he did so knowing that his political party, Religious Zionism, had won a resounding victory and he was on his way to serving in the Knesset.

On election night, the ex-Border cop sent a message to the Palestinian enemy, offering a dose of what they could expect from him now that he was in the country’s highest legislative body.  He published on Facebook an image, claiming to be himself beating the family that night.  It now has 2,400 Likes. He proudly added: “those beneath me will remember what I did when I was in the army.”  In other words, you “Arabs” can expect more of the same from me. Only now, I won’t be beating a few of you here and there. Now I can beat you on behalf of the entire nation in the Knesset. And trust me, there isn’t that much difference between a physical beat-down and what he can do to “Arabs” in the Knesset.

As a result of Cohen’s proud admission of torture, the family has appointed noted Israeli human rights attorney, Eitay Mack to represent them. Mack has filed an appeal with the police investigative unit chief, demanding he reopen the case against Cohen and his fellow torturers.  My guess is that he doesn’t expect any response except to say that his appeal is duly noted.  Along with any other pro forma statements which sound reasonable, but amount to “not on your life. we won’t.”

Most Israeli media outlets have pixelated the face of one of the cops who participated in the torture of this family. They apparently did so in order to protect their identity. My view is that such thugs deserve their 15 minutes of infamy (or fame, as they would see it). So you can see him in all his “glory” here.

Here and in media interviews I’ve called this Israel’s first fascist government.  Nothing exemplifies this more than the story of Cohen.  He beat Arabs on behalf of the nation. He was investigated and declared innocent by the state. And now he raises his game by bringing his thuggery into the halls of the Knesset.

Some of you may remember there have been ex-terrorists who’ve led previous Israeli governments: Yitzhak Shamir, Menachem Begin among them.  But they had “retired” from their violent past and become political leaders. This doesn’t excuse their crimes by any means.  But the difference with the coming government is that parties that endorse violence and facilitate terrorism, even engage in acts of terror, are in the seats of government.  They are unrepentant fascists and terrorists.

US-UK abandon.moral responsibility

This, Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak, is what you’re endorsing when you celebrate Israel’s “democracy.”  When you praise its free elections and distance yourselves from the actual horrific result by saying that your nation’s relationship with Israel “transcends politics.”  What you mean to say is: we look the other way at Israel’s crimes because there are other factors more important.  Foremost among them is Israel Lobby pressure for US and UK governments to toe the line and respond to Israel’s military needs and offer diplomatic cover when it’s attacked at the UN.  Not to mention the hundreds of millions poured into their campaigns by pro-Israel oligarchs on both sides of the ocean.  Neither leader has any fixed principles about Israel.  Their positions are based on a political transaction, despite claims to the contrary.

Just as the Biden administration abandoned any responsibility for protecting a US citizen murdered by the IDF (famed Al Jazeera correspondent, Shireen Abu Akleh), so it will seek to slink away from any substantive response to, let alone denunciation of the rise of Israeli fascism. As I noted in my earlier post, it is a shameful betrayal, akin to Nevile Chamberlain’s 1938 capitulation to Hitler over Czechoslovakia.