The Police murder of a Palestinian teacher must now be admitted
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| Residents look at the remains of homes demolished in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in southern Israel, January 25, 2017.Alex Levac |
If anyone wants to know why Israel is not a
normal western state then what happened in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran should
be an object lesson.
Umm al-Hiran is one of about 50 Arab villages
in Israel which is ‘unrecognised’. What this means is that those who live in
these villages have no legal right to do so.
They may be able to stay but then again they may not.
There is of course no such thing as an ‘unrecognised’
Jewish village. By definition Jews have the right to live where they want.
After all their right is god given.
Being ‘unrecognised’ means that the village
was not connected to the national water mains, electricity or power supply.
Everything it had was built by the residents themselves. However the new Jewish
town of Hiran will have all these facilities and more.
Israel’s Palestinians are there on
sufferance. The villagers of Umm al-Hiran were
moved by military order to Wadi Atir in 1956. They built stone houses, paved
roads, built wells and farmed the surrounding land. Sheikh Farhoud Abu
al Qi'an argued that before their arrival "It was a desert, with no roads, water, houses or services".
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| Aymen Odeh, leader of the Joint List, made up of the mainly Arab parties is deliberately shot at close range with a sponge bullet by the Israeli Police |
In 2001, the Israel Land Authority described its residents
as a "special obstacle". In
2003 the Israeli state applied to the Magistrates’ Court in Beersheba
for the demolition of the village ex parte, without informing the
landowners. In 2004, the state filed lawsuits to evacuate the villagers on the
basis that they were trespassers who were squatting illegally. The court ruled
that the legal status of the residents was as "permanent residents",
but at the same time concluded that because the land was held from the state
free of charge, their residency could be revoked at any time. The Prime Minister's Office had also
previously blocked a plan to recognise the neighbouring village of Atir, which
shares land with Umm al-Hiran, requesting instead that the plan did not clash
with the proposal to establish a Jewish town.
The proposal would relocate the
Bedouins of Umm al-Hiran to the Bedouin township of Hura, one of seven
Bedouin townships,
all of which are at the bottom of the country's socio-economic index. These
townships are specifically designated towns intended to "contain"
expelled Bedouins. They are characterised by being overcrowded, lacking in
adequate services and having the highest percentage of unemployment
and poverty
in Israel.
Umm al-Hiran is in Israel’s Negev desert (not the
Occupied West Bank or Gaza) which, after over 60 years, was demolished in
order to make way for the ‘Jewish’ town of Hiran.
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| Raba Abu al-Kiyan, the widow of Yakub, next to the rubble of their home in Umm al-Hiran. Alex Levac |
The Negev is largely unoccupied. Few Jews want
to live there. It would have been easy to build a Jewish town next
to Umm al Hiran but that would have defeated another racist master plan, the
Prawer Plan. It is an article of faith amongst Israel’s planners and
demographers that the Negev must be Judified. In other words Arabs must
be confined to their own shanty towns at the disposal of Israeli
industry.
I have covered what happened at Umm al Hiran
before, in a number of blogs
The
Demolition of an Israeli Arab village is why Israel is an Apartheid State &
why a racist state has no ‘right to exist’
The
Demolition of Um al Hiran in Israel’s Negev is why Israel is a racist, settler
colonial state , Better
to be a dog than Bedouin in Israel - The Story of Umm al-Hiran and the
Bedouin of the Negev (Naqab)
The
Demolition of al-Hiran, A Bedouin Village in the Israel’s Negev Desert.
This
is Zionism - The Demolition of Umm al-Hiran.
On January 18th 2017 a large force of Israeli
police accompanied by bulldozers attacked the village. Not
unnaturally the villagers resisted.
During the raid a Palestinian school teacher Yaqub Musa Abu alQi’an,
began driving his car slowly away from his home. His car was raked with gunfire and he lost
control and the car rolled down the hill and killed a policeman. Yaqub who was bleeding heavily was allowed to
die.
What later happened was that the Israeli police and the security minister
Gilad Erdan started inventing a fable that Yaqub was a member of ISIS. They had no evidence of this. They alleged he deliberately killed the
policeman.
It has now been conclusively proven that the killing of the policeman was
a consequence of the police having opened fire and not, as Erdan and others
alleged a deliberate assassination.
What happened in Umm al Hiran, where the leader of the Palestinian Joint
List in the Knesset, Aymen Odeh was shot with a sponge bullet by the Israeli police,
has now been
investigated by a Forensic Architecture team led by Eyal Weizman.
It has been conclusively proven that Yaqub did not deliberately kill the Israeli
policeman despite repeated accusations that he was a ‘terrorist’.
The Ha’aretz editorial below demanded that the Israeli state now
acknowledge what they have done and compensate the family.
Of course the greater injustice, the forcible removal of a Bedouin
village to make way for an Orthodox Jewish town remains
Tony Greenstein
Jun 04, 2019
3:53 AM
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File photo: Israeli policemen stand guard next to a vehicle that rammed into a group of policemen in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran, Israel, January 18, 2017. AP
|
Israel must apologize formally to the family of Yakub Abu al-Kiyan and
compensate it for his death. The state must also retract the blood libel it
spread about the teacher from Umm al-Hiran. All this is required by the release
of the final conclusions of an investigation into the January 2017 eviction of
the village’s residents, during which Abu al-Kiyan and Erez Levi, an Israeli
police officer, were killed.
An analysis of footage from police body cameras, the cameras of
journalists and left-wing activists at the scene and from a police helicopter
supports the conclusion
reached by the Shin Bet security
service and the Justice Ministry department that investigates alleged police
misconduct: Contrary to the claims of then-Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich
and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Abu al-Kiyan did not intentionally
hit Levi with his car, in a terror attack. The analysis also supports
Hadash-Ta’al Chairman Ayman Odeh’s contention that he was hit by a
sponge-tipped bullet at the scene after the incident.
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| The Israeli police spokesman alleged that Yaqub was a murderer and terrorist, something that Erdan also claimed |
“Our analysis shows unequivocally that this wasn’t
a terror attack or anything resembling one,” said Prof.
Eyal Weizman, whose Forensic Architecture agency at Goldsmiths, University in
London, investigated the incident. Weizman explained that Abu al-Kiyan hit Levi
with his car because he lost control of it after being shot and wounded. As a
result, Abu al-Kiyan bled to death, without any of the policemen lifting a finger
to help him. This fact underscores the importance of the incident with Odeh,
Weizman added, “since he and other
activists were nearby and sought to reach [Abu al-Kiyan] to give him first aid,
which could have saved his life.”
The Justice Ministry department at one point recommended that one of the
policemen who opened fire be questioned as a criminal suspect in Abu al-Kiyan’s
death, in light of evidence obtained from the Shin Bet. But that recommendation
was rejected by State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, who apparently caved in to
pressure from the police commissioner after Alsheich doubled down on his
baseless accusation that Abu al-Kiyan was a terrorist.
Weizman blamed the Justice Ministry department, saying that had its
personnel “dealt with the evidence the
way we dealt with it, they would have seen clearly that the police were
responsible for the deaths of Abu al-Kiyan and Erez Levi, as well as for Odeh’s
serious injuries.” Instead, he continued, “What we saw was an ongoing attempt to manipulate the evidence,
including by not handing over evidence.”
Given the results of this investigation, Israel must officially clear
Abu al-Kiyan of all guilt and apologize to his family for the false accusations
hurled at him. It must also compensate the family for the fact that he was
shot, wounded and bled to death without being offered medical care that might
have saved his life as well as for the smearing of his reputation and his
memory, which exacerbated the crime of his killing. Finally, it must
investigate everyone involved, both those who fired and those who perpetrated
the cover-up, and see to the prosecution of everyone responsible for the
scandalous handling of this painful affair.
New Footage Sheds Light on
Fraught, Fatal 2017 Episode in Bedouin Village
U.K. forensic organization releases video of
incident in which a local resident and a police officer were killed and an Arab
lawmaker wounded, during the evacuation of Umm al-Hiran
Jun 03, 2019 10:16 PM
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Israel Police entering Umm al-Hiran in advance of the evacuation, on January 18, 2017.Keren Manor / Activestills
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The final chapter of an investigation into an
incident in a Negev Bedouin village in 2017, in which two people were killed,
was publicized Monday by British forensic experts. The two victims killed
during the Israeli security forces' evacuation of Umm al-Hiran, in advance of
its planned demolition, were a local teacher, Yakub Abu al-Kiyan, and police
officer Erez Levy.
Compiled by the U.K.-based Forensic
Architecture research organization, the report features images from body
cameras worn by Israel
Police officers at the scene on January 18, 2017, immediately after Abu
al-Kiyan – who was shot while driving and then lost control of his vehicle – ran
over Levy and killed him.
Original assessments by politicians and other
officials were that this was a deliberate, car-ramming attack.
The new investigation, headed by Prof. Eyal
Weizman of Goldsmiths, University of London, was also based on footage from the
cameras of journalists (including documentary photography collective
Activestills), local residents and left-wing activists who were present during
the evacuation – and from a police helicopter. These materials, backed by
digital analyses by Forensic Architecture, support the theory of the Justice
Ministry's department for investigation of the police, as well as of the Shin
Bet security service, that Abu al-Kiyan was not trying to run over Levy as
a terrorist act.
Forensic Architecture
The images also confirm the version
of events provided by Knesset member Ayman Odeh, then-chairman of the Joint
List party, who was also in Umm al-Hiran that day and claims he was hit in the
head then by a sponge-tipped bullet.
The newly released footage from policemen’s
body cameras shows Abu al-Kiyan losing control of his vehicle after he was
shot. The vehicle proceeds on its way at high speed and shots can be heard in
the background. After a few seconds the vehicle stops and its horn starts
honking. A policeman can be seen opening the door and removing Abu al-Kiyan.
The Forensic Architecture report rules out
the possibility that Abu al-Kiyan was shot by a police officer at close range,
calling it “unreasonable,” and reveals new information about developments near
the scene, including the incident with Odeh. The police have denied that
sponge-tipped bullets were fired at him and said demonstrators had been
throwing rocks, one of which hit the MK.
The authors of the report say the police
investigation department of the Justice Ministry failed to give Odeh’s lawyers
three videos taken by the police at Umm al-Hiran, which could have shed light
on the incident; the written transcript of testimonies by policemen lacked
statements relating to the incident as well, they note. One video clip from the
police was broadcast on Israel's Channel 10 television last year, but it was
edited, omitting the seconds when Odeh was apparently injured.
The clash between security forces and Odeh and
left-wing activists occurred seconds after Abu al-Kiyan was shot and Levy was
run over, as the activists tried to approach the site.
The new investigatory materials (and others) were
collected by Forensic Architecture in collaboration with the Public Committee
Against Torture in Israel, which is providing legal representation to Odeh.
After the case was closed against the policemen involved in the incident
involving him, the MK's
lawyers submitted an appeal in March. Now, with publication of the new
information, it is likely that the investigation of Odeh’s injury will be
reopened.
As to the circumstances surrounding Abu al-Kiyan's
death, the Justice Ministry department had recommended that one of the
policemen who fired his weapon be questioned under caution, based on
information from the Shin Bet. However, the prosecution closed the case and
never questioned anybody about firing the lethal shot.
Eyal Weizman, a professor of spatial and visual
cultures at Goldsmiths, says Forensic Architecture's analysis categorically
shows that Abu al-Kiyan was in no way motivated by terrorist intentions when he
ran over Levy; he had lost control of his vehicle after being shot, whereupon
he bled to death because the
security forces did not attend to him.
“That is
why the incident with Odeh is so important, as he and other activists were
right there and tried to get to him [Abu al-Kiyan] to help him, which could
have saved his life,” says Weizman, adding that he and his co-researchers
found an abundance of photographic and other evidence of the evacuation of Umm
al-Hiran on that fateful day.
“It is unusual
to get footage from so many angles regarding a single incident,” he says. “If the Justice Ministry's department had
related to the evidence like we do, they would have clearly seen that the
police were responsible for the deaths of Abu al-Kiyan and Erez Levy, and for
Odeh’s serious injuries. What we see is a persistent effort to manipulate the
evidence, including the failure to provide evidence. The policeman who shot
live bullets at Abu-Kiyan and the one who shot at Odeh should be put on trial.”
Israel Police officers next to
the vehicle driven by Yakub Abu al-Kiyan in Umm al-Hiran on January 18, 2017. Tsafrir Abayov / AP
For its part, after receiving the new information, the
department for investigation of the police at the Justice Ministry commented
that the plaintiffs had not made additional requests or reported anything
missing from the testimony originally submitted in the case.
“In the
appeal, the claim was raised for the first time that video footage was
missing," according to the department's statement. "To the best of
our knowledge, the material was transferred in full. If, however, material is
missing, those making the appeal should submit it."
Forensics Architecture will be displaying some of the
images from its investigation of the Umm al-Hiran incident at the Whitney
Museum of American Art in New York, as part of its 2019 biennial, through
September.
See also
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