Israeli Police Assaulted a Palestinian Man and His Mom as His Friends Watched on Facebook Live
Any
comments that I make on this video are superfluous. A
Palestinian man sitting in a traffic queue at a checkpoint was viciously
attacked, dragged from his car and beaten up badly enough to require hospital
treatment for 6 days. His mother was also abused.
The
pretext was a search for weapons but the real reason was the racist delight in
singling out a Palestinian who was enjoying listening to his music in the
comfort of his car. That was his real crime.
Marwan sitting in his car prior to the attack by Israeli Police
Will
the police responsible be prosecuted and punished? Don’t be silly. Attacks on Palestinians
are not a crime, except in the technical sense. Imagine that this had happened
to a Jewish settler and what the reaction would be. This is Zionism, red in
tooth and claw and this is what Israel’s apologists, such as pitiful Keir
Starmer, the Zionist ‘without
qualification’ and Pollard’s Jewish Chronicle defends.
It
is also what Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ crisis was about. The Israeli government, which
presides over the impunity of Israeli Police, contains the parties of the Zionist
‘left’ – Meretz and the Israeli Labor Party. Who was in the driving seat of the
false ‘anti-Semitism’ smears if not the Jewish Labour Movement which describes
the ILP as its ‘sister party’.
The vicious and violent attack begins
How
is it that the Labour Party, that at least formally, claims to be a party of
anti-racism, can tolerate the ‘sister party’ of an Israeli party which is part
of a government that presides over Israel’s apartheid occupation of the West
Bank, as an affiliated socialist society?
As
is always the case when there is video evidence, the Israeli Police
version consists of a tissue of lies, such as that Marwan refused to get out of
his car or that he refused to stop his car when asked. £5,000 damage has been
done to his car. It is unlikely that the criminals who did this will pay a
penny of compensation nor will they be disciplined. It is even more unlikely
that the Israeli state will be required to pay compensation for the attack on Marwan.
Instead
Israel has outlawed
6 human rights organisations in the West Bank to prevent them documenting
similar Israeli human rights outrages. The pretext being ‘terrorism’ of course
when the real terrorists were in uniform.
The
Quisling PA of Abbas is hardly likely to take this up with Israel or even
make its collaboration with Israel contingent on making amends. After all it is
equally guilty of human rights abuses.
Joe
Biden will continue to fund the Israeli state in the knowledge that this kind
of repression will continue. Kamallah Harris, the Uncle Tom who is his
Vice-President, will continue
to claim that Israel’s critics are motivated by ‘anti-Semitism’. And why
not? After all they have waged a drone
war in Afghanistan and Pakistan for years. This includes killing 10 people
including 7 children in a recent attack in Kabul.
Below
is an article
in Israel’s Ha’aretz by Gideon Levy, who as usual, brilliantly sums up what
happened.
Tony
Greenstein
Nov. 5,
2021
Gideon Levy
Israeli
Police Assaulted a Palestinian Man and His Mom as his Friends Watched on
Facebook Live
Marwan al-Husseini and his mother Raisa were traveling to see relatives
when undercover police stopped their car and dragged them from it violently.
The officers beat Marwan and strip-searched Raisa before releasing them. The
police later lied about what happened - but the incident was caught on video
Just watch the video. You’ll be stunned. A man sits at the wheel of his
car, wearing a white T-shirt and dark sunglasses. Cellphone earphones dangle
from his face; he’s listening to Arabic music. He’s wearing a seat belt, his
car is barely progressing and is trailed by a line of other vehicles trails.
They are stuck in a traffic jam at a security checkpoint. After a moment, he
puts a corona mask on his face. He’s relaxed, one hand leaning on the window of
the car. Cars pass in the opposite direction, while his moves at snail’s pace.
The music plays loudly. He adjusts the mask.
Suddenly there are loud voices. “Stop the car!” “Get out!” The shouts in
Hebrew and Arabic create the impression of an approaching storm. Everything
happens fast. While he still seems to be wondering what’s going on, a baton is
already smashing the window of his car. The man tries to protect his head with
his hands. Someone who looks to be a security guard opens the back door,
thrusts himself into the car and sits in the back seat shouting. The man is
frightened; the guard, wearing blue rubber gloves but no uniform, grabs his
neck from behind. The driver’s elderly mother, sitting in the passenger seat up
front, is not captured in the footage taken by the car’s web camera. Another
guard opens the driver’s door, unfastens the seat belt and forcibly drags him
out of the car. The shouting does not stop. A very dangerous criminal has
apparently been captured.
The music continues to play, the driver’s door remains open, the webcam
keeps recording. Cars pass by in the opposite direction. One armed man – it
later turns out that he and all the others were police officers in civilian
clothes – opens one of the back doors of the car, while his comrades continue
to yell and beat the driver who’s been pulled out of the car, and breaking the
window next to the driver's seat.
This must be a case of a so-called ticking bomb that must be defused at
all costs. The man shouts and the guards continue to kick and beat him, guns
visible in their holsters. There are four or five attackers at first, then more
join in. The camera manages to catch what’s happening through the broken
window; someone else is seen being dragged out. The rear door slams shut. An
elderly woman in a head scarf is seen screaming, near the beaten man on the
ground. The volume of the music in the car increases dramatically, as if cued
by the film’s director. The gunmen can be seen going back and forth. Probably a
serious incident. The video cuts.
Video of the arrest. The police said the ‘suspect refused to open the vehicle door.’
This is what happened on Tuesday, October 12, around 1 P.M. Marwan al-Husseini,
38, and his mother Raisa, 65, residents of Hebron, were on their way to visit
family in the village of Al-Azariya, several kilometers east of Jerusalem. When
they passed by the village of Al-Zaim en route, they encountered
a checkpoint and the traffic slowed their car down. The video footage obtained
by B’Tselem was taken by Marwan, who was streaming with Facebook Live from the
car. He wanted to record himself on an outing with his mother, as he
occasionally does, and found himself documenting a wild kidnapping in broad
daylight, in real time. The armed security personnel who attacked him were
Israeli police officers who were in civilian clothes.
At the Husseini home, in the western part of Hebron, emotions are still
running high when we visit this week, and there is an air of mourning.
Husseini, a stocky man, is surrounded by his equally stocky brothers and some
friends. He had worked for years in Israel and now works as a taxi driver in
the West Bank. His wife is pregnant with their first child. On that Tuesday,
they were going to visit his mother’s sister in Facebook Live Anata, a few
kilometers northeast of Jerusalem. En route, about 40 meters before the traffic
circle near the entrance to the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, he noticed police
vehicles on both sides of the road. He recalls hurriedly putting on his mask,
lest the police fine him. It never occurred to him that they were lurking in
wait – for him. There were three civilian cars before him in the line. He
recalls being pulled violently out of the car without any explanation and being
beaten, even after he was knocked to the ground. He says he lost consciousness
and woke up in a van that took him to a police station at the entrance to
Ma’aleh Adumim. He lost consciousness again, regaining it intermittently. In
the van, he recalls, the officers continued to jab at him with their elbows.
They did not utter a word about why he was being detained.
Husseini says his mother panicked and had difficulty removing her seat
belt; a female officer dragged her out of their car and let her fall to the
ground. Raisa was taken to the same police station but in a separate vehicle.
The police brought Hussein’s car to the station and dismantled its
seats, apparently searching for weapons. He was bleeding and in serious pain
after being beaten all over. An Israeli ambulance arrived, a paramedic examined
him and left. The officers made him sit on a chair in the hallway. His whole
body was aching and he could not sit from the pain, so he lay on the floor. He
remembers vomiting twice there, whereupon the officers scolded him, threatening
him that if he threw up again, he would be forced to clean up the corridor
after himself.
Raisa
Al-Husseini, Marwan's mother. Three female police officers strip-searched her.Credit:
Moti Milrod
Husseini begged the police to arrange for an ambulance to take him to
the hospital. One of them told him: “If you want an ambulance, you will have to
pay 4,000 shekels [$1,300] for it,” Marwan says he replied: “I will pay 10,000 shekels, just get me to a
hospital.”
When he asked about his mother, a door opened to one of the rooms and he
saw her. She was trembling all over. A few days later, Raisa told Musa Abu
Hashhash, a field researcher for the B’Tselem Israeli human rights
organization, that three female officers had forced her to strip naked for a
body search – it’s not clear for what reason. Her son kept crying out and
begging for an ambulance. The officers forbade them to exchange a word.
So it was that Husseini was lying in pain on the station floor for about
five hours, until about 10 P.M. When he asked why he and his mother were being
detained, an officer said: “Because you
did not stop for the police when they told you to do so.” Marwan replied, “When you stopped me the car was not in
motion” – proof of which can be seen in the video footage from his webcam.
He tells us now that his entire interrogation boiled down to one question,
asked by one of the officers in the hallway: “Where is your weapon?” To which Husseini replied, “You have my car, and you can find any
weapon that’s there with ease.” Of course, he had no idea what weapon they
were talking about.
Marwan Al-Husseini in Hebron,
last week. He was hospitalized for six days, and underwent surgery.
Shortly after 10 P.M., Husseini was asked if they had any relatives in
the area who could come and take him and his mother home, but he demanded first
to be taken to the hospital. He says the officers aggressively forced him out
of the station and into the yard, where he was shocked to see his dismantled
car.
“Take your car and drive off,” police ordered.
“How do you expect me to drive a broken car?” he asked.
Then Husseini’s cellphone rang. Anxious relatives had been searching for
him and his mother throughout the afternoon and evening, but it was only now
that the officers guarding him allowed him to answer. This time, when he
answered, it was his brother Bader, a bearded young man, on the line; Bader is
now sitting with us. Marwan told him what happened and asked for someone to
come and collect him and their mother.
Marwan Al-Husseini's car following
the arrest. The police pulled the seats apart.
The wife of one of the Husseinis’ cousins who lives nearby, drove to
pick them, followed by Bader and another brother, Ibrahim, who lives in
Jericho. They took Marwan and his mother to Hebron-Alia Hospital and had the
car towed to Hebron.
Raisa told B’Tselem’s Abu Hashhash that during her arrest she wet
herself out of anxiety; she has diabetes and high blood pressure. She is now
seated with us in the yard of her house, silent and surrounded by her children
and grandchildren. The signs of shock are still evident. “I’m exhausted,” she
tells us.
She had been released from the hospital at 4 A.M. on October 12,
extremely shaken up but not injured.
Marwan
Al-Husseini and his brother Bader in Hebron, last week.Credit: Moti Milrod
Marwan ended up being hospitalized for six days; he required surgery for
injuries to his groin, from the kicks he received from the police. He shows us
some images of his bruises, which are hard to look at. Even now he looks
battered and broken; his gait is slow and his gaze forlorn. He tells us that he
had to pay 20,000 shekels to repair the damage to his car, which is owned by
his blind sister-in-law, whom he drives around.
The Israel Police provided this statement regarding the incident: “As
part of an operational activity against weapons offenses, the arrest of a
suspect was carried out near al-Azaryia. During the arrest, said suspect
refused to open the vehicle door and out of concern that he would conceal
evidence or harm the police officers, the latter were forced to break into the
vehicle and arrest him. The suspect along with another passenger who was in the
vehicle were taken to the police station and at the end of the investigation
and the search, they were released.”
The video – which was due to be passed on to the Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department – proves, as would a thousand witnesses, that the police’s claim that Marwan al-Husseini refused to stop his car and open the door when asked is a complete lie. It also clearly shows the officers’ brutal violence. Violence that has resulted in the injury of a yet another person innocent of any crime, even according to the police themselves.
