This is why Israel is a Racist State – For Murdering an Asylum Seeker - 4 months – For Slapping a Soldier - 8 months

Israeli Who Attacked Asylum Seeker in 2015 Lynch Sentenced to Four Months in Prison

If there was one case which demonstrates why Israel is a racist state and why Zionism is a racist endeavour, then this is it.  You don’t need to have a great understanding of Israel’s laws, policies or regulations. Nowhere in Israeli law is it written down that a lynch mob that brutally murders a defenceless asylum seeker should receive a community sentence or a derisory prison sentence but Israel’s ‘justice’ system doesn’t need to be told what to do.

It comes automatically for Israel’s courts to sentence someone according to their ethnic origin and to make excuses for attacks on Palestinians or non-Jews.  That is, after all, what a racist state is all about. When Palestinians are murdered they are just a statistic.  When a Jewish settler is killed, note I don’t say murdered, then we hear about their family, their children, how wonderful they were, their sense of humour etc.  Palestinians however do not have children or personalities.

Palestinian attacks on Israeli occupiers of their land are acts of ‘terrorism’ for which life sentences of 30 or more years are passed, but the brutal slaying of someone whose only crime was to have escaped repression in his home country of Eritrea, falsely believing Israel’s claims to be a democratic state, is dealt with as if it were a traffic misdemeanour.

However when a year ago, Ahed Tamimi, a 16 year old Palestinian girl, slapped a heavily armed soldier who entered the grounds of her house in Bi’ilin, moments after her 15 year old cousin had nearly had his head blown off by a plastic bullet, she was given 8 months in prison by a military court.

No doubt the Zionists will find some base propaganda reason for the disparity in sentences. Adam Langleben of the Jewish Labour Movement will no doubt treat my criticism as ‘anti-Semitism’ as will Jack Mendel of the Jewish News.  

After all it well understood in Israel, because the Rabbis have often given expression to it, that a Jewish and non-Jewish life are not the same.  In thewords of Rabbi Dov Lior, the Chief Rabbi for Kiryat Arab and effectively the Jewish settlers, a Jewish fingernail is worth more than a thousand non-Jewish lives (for some rabbis it is a million to one ratio).  According to former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu "the life of one yeshiva boy is worth more than the lives of 1,000 Arabs.”

Momentum's racist head Jon Lansman is obsessed by a non-existent anti-semitism whilst ignoring a state based on lynch law and entrenched discrimination

In prioritising ‘anti-Semitism’ which barely exists over the very real situation of Apartheid violence in Israel Lansman is doing no more nor less than what the Labour Party has done historically, which is to give a free pass to the British Empire and colonialism.  The Labour Party’s opposition to Apartheid in South Africa was very recent and its opposition to colonialism was even more recent.  Lansman stands in a rich, racist tradition as do supporters of his in Momentum.

Lansman and the Jewish Labour Movement will dismiss all this as ‘anti-Semitism’ but we all know the smell of Apartheid. The veterans of the Apartheid struggle in South Africa certainly do.

Labour’s National Executive and the 150+ Councils up and down the country, to say nothing of the SNP government in Edinburgh are all accomplices in Israeli Apartheid and that should be our message for the coming year.

Tony Greenstein 

Israeli Who Attacked Asylum Seeker in 2015 Lynch Sentenced to Four Months in Prison

Defendant admitted to abusing a helpless person as part of plea deal reached last month. Nine people assaulted in 2015 an Eritrean asylum seeker they mistook for a terrorist who opened fire at a bus station

An Israeli man convicted of assaulting an Eritrean asylum seeker mistaken for a terrorist in 2015 was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in prison.

Haftom Zarhum died following a beating at the central bus station in the southern city of Be'er Sheva, but an autopsy of his body showed that he died of gunshots and not of the assault by nine people.

Be'er Shvea District Court sentenced the attacker, Evyatar Damari, who admitted to abusing a helpless person as part of a plea agreement reached last month and approved by the court.

At a hearing in the case last month, Damari told the court that he regretted his actions and would not repeat them.

CCTV footage shows Eritrean national shot and beaten in Be'er Sheva, October 18, 2015.

On October 18, 2015, a gunman later identified as Muhannad al-Okbi, a Bedouin from the Negev town of Hura who is an Israeli citizen, opened fire at the Be'er Sheva central bus station, killing a soldier and wounding 10 other people. Damari and eight others attacked Zarhum, mistakenly thinking he was the terrorist.

Security camera footage showed Damari kicking Zarhum after he had been shot. The prosecution in the case had initially sought to have Damari tried for aggravated intentional infliction of personal injury, which if convicted, could have had him sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. 

Haftom Zarhum, who was killed by a mob wrongly suspecting him of terrorism on Monday, Oct. 19, 2015.

Damari is in a poor emotional state and has deteriorated while his case has been pending. Two months ago, he threatened a member of the prosecution team in his case, prompting additional charges against him and an order that he remain in detention until that case is disposed of. 

His lawyer, Moshe Sorogovich, had asked the court to limit his client's sentence to just over a month at most and cited the case of another of Zarhum's assailants at the bus station, David Moyal, who in July was sentenced in a plea agreement to 100 days of community service. Moyal had hit Zarhum with a bench.

In addition to Damari and Moyal, two others were charged with assaulting Zarhum: A Golani brigade soldier by the name of Ya'akov Shamba and a prison service employee, Ronen Cohen.

The cases against Shamba and Cohen are still pending. At the trial of Shamba's case last month, two former Israeli army major generals testified that under the circumstances, in the midst of a terrorist attack, Shamba had acted in a level-headed manner as would have been expected of a combat soldier.

This is why Israel is a Racist State – For Murdering an Asylum Seeker - 4 months – For Slapping a Soldier - 8 months

Israeli Who Attacked Asylum Seeker in 2015 Lynch Sentenced to Four Months in Prison

If there was one case which demonstrates why Israel is a racist state and why Zionism is a racist endeavour, then this is it.  You don’t need to have a great understanding of Israel’s laws, policies or regulations. Nowhere in Israeli law is it written down that a lynch mob that brutally murders a defenceless asylum seeker should receive a community sentence or a derisory prison sentence but Israel’s ‘justice’ system doesn’t need to be told what to do.

It comes automatically for Israel’s courts to sentence someone according to their ethnic origin and to make excuses for attacks on Palestinians or non-Jews.  That is, after all, what a racist state is all about. When Palestinians are murdered they are just a statistic.  When a Jewish settler is killed, note I don’t say murdered, then we hear about their family, their children, how wonderful they were, their sense of humour etc.  Palestinians however do not have children or personalities.

Palestinian attacks on Israeli occupiers of their land are acts of ‘terrorism’ for which life sentences of 30 or more years are passed, but the brutal slaying of someone whose only crime was to have escaped repression in his home country of Eritrea, falsely believing Israel’s claims to be a democratic state, is dealt with as if it were a traffic misdemeanour.

However when a year ago, Ahed Tamimi, a 16 year old Palestinian girl, slapped a heavily armed soldier who entered the grounds of her house in Bi’ilin, moments after her 15 year old cousin had nearly had his head blown off by a plastic bullet, she was given 8 months in prison by a military court.

No doubt the Zionists will find some base propaganda reason for the disparity in sentences. Adam Langleben of the Jewish Labour Movement will no doubt treat my criticism as ‘anti-Semitism’ as will Jack Mendel of the Jewish News. 

After all it well understood in Israel, because the Rabbis have often given expression to it, that a Jewish and non-Jewish life are not the same.  In the words of Rabbi Dov Lior, the Chief Rabbi for Kiryat Arab and effectively the Jewish settlers, a Jewish fingernail is worth more than a thousand non-Jewish lives (for some rabbis it is a million to one ratio).  According to former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu " the life of one yeshiva boy is worth more than the lives of 1,000 Arabs.”

Momentum's racist head Jon Lansman is obsessed by a non-existent anti-semitism whilst ignoring a state based on lynch law and entrenched discrimination

In prioritising ‘anti-Semitism’ which barely exists over the very real situation of Apartheid violence in Israel Lansman is doing no more nor less than what the Labour Party has done historically, which is to give a free pass to the British Empire and colonialism.  The Labour Party’s opposition to Apartheid in South Africa was very recent and its opposition to colonialism was even more recent.  Lansman stands in a rich, racist tradition as do supporters of his in Momentum.

Lansman and the Jewish Labour Movement will dismiss all this as ‘anti-Semitism’ but we all know the smell of Apartheid. The veterans of the Apartheid struggle in South Africa certainly do.

Labour’s National Executive and the 150+ Councils up and down the country, to say nothing of the SNP government in Edinburgh are all accomplices in Israeli Apartheid and that should be our message for the coming year.

Tony Greenstein

Israeli Who Attacked Asylum Seeker in 2015 Lynch Sentenced to Four Months in Prison

Defendant admitted to abusing a helpless person as part of plea deal reached last month. Nine people assaulted in 2015 an Eritrean asylum seeker they mistook for a terrorist who opened fire at a bus station

An Israeli man convicted of assaulting an Eritrean asylum seeker mistaken for a terrorist in 2015 was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in prison.

Haftom Zarhum died following a beating at the central bus station in the southern city of Be'er Sheva, but an autopsy of his body showed that he died of gunshots and not of the assault by nine people.

Be'er Shvea District Court sentenced the attacker, Evyatar Damari, who admitted to abusing a helpless person as part of a plea agreement reached last month and approved by the court.

At a hearing in the case last month, Damari told the court that he regretted his actions and would not repeat them.

CCTV footage shows Eritrean national shot and beaten in Be'er Sheva, October 18, 2015.

On October 18, 2015, a gunman later identified as Muhannad al-Okbi, a Bedouin from the Negev town of Hura who is an Israeli citizen, opened fire at the Be'er Sheva central bus station, killing a soldier and wounding 10 other people. Damari and eight others attacked Zarhum, mistakenly thinking he was the terrorist.

Security camera footage showed Damari kicking Zarhum after he had been shot. The prosecution in the case had initially sought to have Damari tried for aggravated intentional infliction of personal injury, which if convicted, could have had him sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

Haftom Zarhum, who was killed by a mob wrongly suspecting him of terrorism on Monday, Oct. 19, 2015.

Damari is in a poor emotional state and has deteriorated while his case has been pending. Two months ago, he threatened a member of the prosecution team in his case, prompting additional charges against him and an order that he remain in detention until that case is disposed of. 

His lawyer, Moshe Sorogovich, had asked the court to limit his client's sentence to just over a month at most and cited the case of another of Zarhum's assailants at the bus station, David Moyal, who in July was sentenced in a plea agreement to 100 days of community service. Moyal had hit Zarhum with a bench.

In addition to Damari and Moyal, two others were charged with assaulting Zarhum: A Golani brigade soldier by the name of Ya'akov Shamba and a prison service employee, Ronen Cohen.

The cases against Shamba and Cohen are still pending. At the trial of Shamba's case last month, two former Israeli army major generals testified that under the circumstances, in the midst of a terrorist attack, Shamba had acted in a level-headed manner as would have been expected of a combat soldier.

Israel's Lynching of Haneen Zoabi

I’ve written before about the attacks of the Israeli state and politicians from all the Zionist parties – (with the partial exception of Meretz) on Haneen Zoabi, the incredibly brave Israeli Palestinian Member of the Knesset for Balad/Joint List.

Haneen Zoabi

As readers of the blog will be aware from previous posts eg. The Witchhunt Against Arab-Israeli Knesset Member Haneen Zoabi  Haneen Zoabi is subject to what can only be called a lynch mob mentality inside the Knesset, Israel’s ‘parliament’ from Zionist  MKs.  The reflection of this attitude outside the Knesset is, not surprisingly even worse.  If the campaign continues it can only be a matter of time before an attempt at assassination of Zoabi occurs.  And if that takes place the responsibility will lie not just on Jewish Home (Habayit HeYehudi) or Likud but on the Israeli Labour Party/Zionist Union and Yesh Atid, the ‘moderate’ Zionist parties.

Frankfurt synagogue set alight

Mosque set alight by settlers

Despite all their fulminations against Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, the Zionists demonstrate that what they really fear is Arab nationalism and secularism, not least a woman who isn’t the caricature female in a Burka but an unveiled woman from a Muslim background.  As I’ve often documented on this blog, despite its attacks on Islam, Israel is most happy with Islamic fundamentalists and in spite of its rhetoric it played a key part in the foundation of Hamas.  

Haneen Zoabi first aroused the Zionist ire when she was a passenger on the Marvi Marmara, the ship that Israel attacked killing 10 people on the high seas as it tried to break the Gaza blockade.  When she challenged the view that the killing of 3 settler youth last year was ‘terrorism’ as opposed to individual killings she was suspended for 6 months by the Knesset from effectively being an MK.  When the ‘Justice’ Minister posted genocidal comments on her FB page calling for the murder of Palestinian mothers to stop them giving birth to ‘little Palestinian nakes’ there was no comeback.  Israeli racism is acceptable, Palestinian opposition is always unacceptable.

Below is an interesting article comparing the pogrom against Germany’s Jews in November 1938 to the attacks on Haneen Zoabi.

Tony Greenstein

A “Blue and White Kristallnacht: 

Only a Matter of Time

by Richard Silverstein on November 9, 2015

in Jews & Judaism, Mideast Peace

MK Haneen Zoabi fights back against attacks on her by Israeli Jewish rightists

Haneen Zoabi attacked during election campaign

Israeli Palestinian MK Haneen Zoabi is once again stirring up a hornet’s nest among Israeli Jews.  For those not well versed in how she is perceived, imagine Malcolm X in the year or two before he died, when he was reviled by white America as a white-hating firebrand and inciter of racial violence.  She has been threatened with death too many times to mention, including a Facebook group which put a bull’s-eye right above her forehead.

(credit: Jewish Voice for Peace)

Invited to address a Dutch Jewish leftist group, Platform Stop Racism and Exclusion, in Amsterdam on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Zoabi took the opportunity to link the victimization of European Jews by the Nazis to the suffering of Palestinians under Occupation.  Zionists insist they have a monopoly on suffering and the world’s sympathy and exploit the Holocaust regularly for this purpose.  Having a Palestinian probe the issue and point out both the flaws in the argument and the implications racial hatred may have in today’s Israel-Palestine conflict is simply maddening.

Synagogue burning in Kristallnacht

the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish at Tabgha, near Tiberias

That is why Zoabi is not just vilified, but under constant police investigation and repeatedly scolded by her Knesset colleagues who strip her legislative privileges for her temerity.  Another impact of her activism is to rebut the Likudist meme that Palestinians are the modern incarnation of Nazis (remember Bibi’s false claim that the Mufti told Hitler to “burn them”?).  Zoabi, in effect, turns the tables and notes that it is the Israelis who are adopting many of the practices of the Nazis, if not yet the cardinal one of genocide.

Kristallnacht/Nakba

The coverage of Zoabi’s speech is incomplete.  Most Israeli news outlets paraphrase bits of it.  And I don’t yet have a transcript of her remarks (UPDATE: I do now here).  But a Dutch newspaper published an interview with her just before she spoke this evening.  In it, she goes over the points she would’ve likely made in her talk:

Faced with criticism from Netherlands, Zoabi said by telephone, they can “just laugh.”

“I’m used to it, that I am accused of being anti-Semite or Hamas supporter. The fact is that I stand up for the Palestinian people. This makes many Israelis, and apparently others angry. That is the real reason for the sedition against my person. ”

Do you understand that Israelis feel that you undermine the state?

Zoabi: “For Israelis, the Palestinians have no right to resist. After all, they find that there is no occupation of Palestinian territory. In their eyes, the Palestinians do not suffer humiliation, arrests, land grabbing and so on. Israel is in total denial of the occupation, the harassment of Palestinians, of crimes against humanity. If you demonstrate against it, you’re supposedly agitating. They even have a problem with Europeans supporting the Palestinians, who they seek to prevent entering the country. Israel is the one who incites against the truth.  Every critical European voice it silences by calling it anti-Semitic. ”

What do you think of the accusation that you are an anti-Semite?

“That is political terror. A method to impose silenced on people . Any criticism of [Israeli] oppression is called anti-Semitism. ” But I’m not making that oppression. I did not create the reality. How do they want me to react to it? They expect that I should agree with it? Israelis seem to think we will not resist. ”

What does the commemoration of Kristallnacht for you personally?

“It is very important to commemorate Kristallnacht. I stand up for freedom, dignity and human rights. Kristallnacht was an important stage on the way to the demonization of Jews. If the majority of the Germans and the rest of the Europeans had not demonized the Jews, there would have been no Holocaust. For me, the silence of the majority an important role. Not everyone agreed, but they kept their mouths shut in the face of demonization of the Jews. ”

How do you explain the link between Kristallnacht and the situation in Israel and Palestine?

“The majority of Israelis supports the suppression and demonization of Palestinians. The message of the Kristallnacht is precisely: do not be silent. Of course we have no problem with Jews. But in this country privileges are to be given to one group, in this case the Jews. That is the wrong message. You can not combat racism and oppression by handing out privileges. Racism must be countered by equality, justice and human rights.”

972 Magazine journalist, Avi Blecherman affirmed Zoabi’s views about the decline of Israeli society into a semblance of proto-Nazism in this Facebook post I translated:

A society doesn’t lose itself in a single day.  For the Germans too it took time.  We’re speaking of a long process of deterioration until the inevitable catastrophe.  We [Israelis] are on the way there.  The last remnants of what morality we had are breaking down, sinking into a mire of self-righteousness and victimhood.  We’re turning our neighbors into sub-humans, murderous beasts: we must not buy from them, live next door to them, permit our daughters to be defiled by them.  Most of all, we must “neutralize” them, destroy and plunder their homes, and deny them citizenship, which they only had on a conditional basis anyway.

Israel is already deep into free-fall towards the abyss.  Prime Minister Fascist-yahu is already dripping into our brain the new comparison: Palestinians=Nazis.  MK Yinon Magal has lately been quoted telling us that the time has come to stop talking about a single Nakba [1948], and start talking about future ones.  A ‘Blue and White’ Kristallnacht is coming, it’s only a matter of time, don’t worry yourself.  We’ve taken on a role much closer to the Nazis, the closing of the ultimate circle.

In this passage, Blecherman refers to this Channel 10 interview with Bayit Yehudi resident-fascist MK, Yinon Magal.  Among other candid statements he makes are:

…After the first Intifada, Rabin surrendered to terror and signed the disgusting, worthless Oslo Accord, the results of which we saw in the second Intifada and up till today.

Before Oslo, most of the world was with us– [rejecting] this folly that there is a people here, a so-called Palestinian people–there is no such people and there will never be such a state–and we must hack away at this hope.  The Palestinians must understand that in war, whoever waves a knife–we can say “Meet Comrade Machine-Gun and Comrade Bullet” [a reference to Haim Guri’s 1943 poem of revenge in which he introduces Zionist weapons as characters who offer revenge for the murder of Europe’s Jews]; that we can count not just Intifadas, but Nakbas [a reference to the two Intifadas and one 1948 Nakba].   Whoever starts a war runs the risk of paying a very heavy price.

What interesting about the reference to the Guri poem is that it was written in 1943, both at the height of the Shoah in Europe and heightened confrontation between Palestinian and Jewish militias in Palestine.  The “comrades” exact revenge not only against the Nazis who exterminated Jews, but also against the Palestinians for making it impossible to save more Jews in Palestine.  Thus, Magal is closing a circle that Netanyahu began by linking the Nazis to the Palestinians.

As far as Israeli politics is concerned, Netanyahu has almost become a figure of the past.  A bridge between the Likudist past of Shamir and Begin and the future of who knows?  The Magals, Hotovelys, Shakeds, and Yaalons are the Likud of the future (see JVP graphic #IsraeliIncitement).  Magal has promised Palestinians a future Nakba.  He’s laid out on a silver platter the future plans of the Jewish state to ethnically cleanse its non-Jewish population.  This is the sort of moral abyss Blecherman refers to in his Facebook post.

Anyone reading this who attempts to dismiss or minimize it, calling it rhetoric, is deluded.  The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin began in just such incitement.  Yinon Magal promises us a future Blue and White Kristallnacht, an Israeli Jewish version of the Third Kingdom, which we might just as well call the Third Reich.

You’re seeking consolation perhaps?  No, there may not be a Shoah.  Small consolation.  No ashes of Palestinian corpses flying up chimneys.  Just an ethnic cleansing of a few hundred thousand or million Palestinians.

The Death of an Eritrean 'Infiltrator'

Unnamed Eritrean Refugee - Murdered by Israeli Lynch Mob in Beer Sheva

Now that the lynching of an Eritrean refugee has gone viral, the same people who were denounced as a ‘cancer’  by the ‘Culture' Minister Miri Regev not so long ago, (though she did apologise to cancer patients for comparing them with refugees!) Netanyahu speaks up.   Before the news spread, the main story was the shooting of an Israeli soldier.  The death of a refugee, or ‘an infiltrator’ to use the term used by the Zionist right (Palestinian refugees used to be called infiltrators when they sought to return to their lands secretively) was just a footnote.

Regev's attitude to culture is to cut off funding for anything that isn't supportive of the settlements and the far-Right.  Clearly her feelings about culture resemble those of Goebbels who remarked that when he heard the word 'culture' he reached for his gun.

Now Netanyahu has condemned the lynching and the Police are conducting an investigation, don’t hold your breath.  Like the firebombing of the Dawabsheh family, and the murder of Abu Khedeir they will make a fuss about how much they are doing for the first day and then – nothing.  The investigation will peter out.  Naftali Bennett, the leader of HaBayit Hayehudi has already described it on Facebook as ‘friendly fire’ though one look at the video suggests what happened was anything but friendly.  Badly injured after being shot, the crowd finished him off with kicks and objects whilst the security looked on.  Such are the ways of the State that was supposed to be a ‘light unto the nations’.

Can a lynching be ironic?

Malynnda Littky
Times of Israel 19^th October

When I learned that Arab maintenance workers were being banned from schools in Tel Aviv, I thought I was about as angry as I could get for a third party problem. Yes, technically the order applies to both Jewish and Arab cleaning staff, but as everyone knows, as with most manual labor in this country, the positions are overwhelmingly filled by Arab laborers. I spent the afternoon questioning how telling 20 percent of the country that despite having done nothing wrong, they were liable to find themselves facing unemployment because of the actions of less than one percent of their fellows. I even asked my friends who supported the measure if it should also apply to Arabs who had fought in the Army or who were publicly defending Israel, like Muhammad Zoabi.

Refugees in Holot concentration camp

Having lived for several years in a village past the Green Line, I was saddened, but not exactly surprised when several of my friends said that Arabs had earned the ban because of the violence of their extremists. It was too much of an effort, they argued, to simply search all of the school employees, and besides, why put guards in danger of an attack?

I had some reservations regarding whether the ban was the best solution, especially considering that most Israelis already face multiple searches every day. A school guard, charged with defending the precious lives of our youth, couldn’t be expected to check for weapons, but weren’t guards at the mall, bus stations, and train stations – where not incidentally, there have already been actual incidents – supposed to risk life and limb to keep us safe? But then I heard about the terrorist attack on the bus station at Beersheba, and decided I had had enough of anger for one day and went to bed.

And so it was not until this morning that I learned that despite the headlines saying ‘one killed and eleven injured’, there were, in fact, two people killed last night in the Beersheba Central Bus Station. But since only one of them, a soldier named Omri Levy, was killed by an Arab, only he is recognized as the victim of a terror attack.

The other man, an Eritrean asylum seeker named Haftom Zarhum, died of wounds he received during the attack, where he was shot in the leg by a soldier who mistook him for a terrorist. After the shooting, in an act which should shock us out of our collective feelings of cultural superiority, Haftom was then savagely lynched by the crowd. While a medical crew tried to evacuate him for treatment, upstanding citizens decided he was a terrorist, and that he deserved to be beaten, spat upon, and cursed, all while chanting anti-Arab slogans. So, they basically acted the same way that Palestinians are denounced for acting when they riot.

Nice.

And what has the response to this news been so far? Well, first, to respond, people have to hear about it. The death seems to have racial undertones so strong that, in America, Al Sharpton would already be sharpening his pencil and throwing on some hair gel. And yet, it is appended to the stories surrounding the terrorist attack as some sort of throwaway news item – “It’s crazy… but what can you do?!”

If he had been Palestinian, it would have been even worse, because the media would have spun it that he was somehow at fault, or if not him, then the Palestinian people, for making us so scared that we shoot first and ask questions later. But this isn’t the fault of the Palestinians, or the Eritreans, or even the IDF, although I am interested in finding out the results of the investigation regarding the events that led up to the shooting of someone who doesn’t fit the vaunted “profile” that the Army leans on so heavily when performing security screenings.

No, the fault rest squarely on the shoulders of Israeli society. If Israeli Arabs lose their jobs or their lives, it’s painted as an unfortunate but acceptable casualty, even as we brag about the “fact” that they are citizens with as many rights as Jewish citizens have. And the refugees should just be glad for the chance to be here until we figure out how to get them the hell back to where they came from.
We demean Arabs and refugees as being violent, and when it comes down to it, we don’t think their lives matter as much as ours do. And by saying “ours” I’m being generous, because as a Black convert, sometimes I wonder just how much my fellow Israelis count me as being “part of the family,” so to speak. Thank God I speak English, right? I better add learning how to say “Black lives matter” to my Hebrew lessons.

I bet more than a few refugees are wondering if they should get some pepper spray right now. And my favorite rationalization I’ve heard so far about the incident? It isn’t fair to demonize us as a nation for the barbaric acts of a few. Yah. Ain’t that the truth. I wonder how Israeli Arabs feel about that statement. Can someone tell me how to say irony in Arabic?

Israeli mob attacks dying Eritrean refugee after soldier is killed

Rania Khalek Rights and Accountability 19 October 2015

Warning: This article contains video and images of extreme violence.
A gunman opened fire at the central bus station in Bir al-Saba (Beer Sheva), a city in the south of present-day Israel, on Sunday evening, killing an Israeli soldier and wounding up to 11 other people.
The assailant shot and killed a soldier and then “snatched his M-16 rifle” before opening fire on the others, most of whom were “members of Israel’s security forces,” Israel’s Ynet reported. Walla! News reported that four of the injured were soldiers.

Israeli police shot and killed the assailant.

Israeli media named the dead soldier as 19-year-old Sergeant Omri Levi. He was a member of the Israeli army’s Golani brigade.

There has been confusion and contradictory reports regarding the identity of the assailant.



Both Reuters and Ynet, citing Palestinian media, claimed he was Isam al-Araj from Shuafat, a neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem whose Palestinian residents have frequently been targeted with violence by Israeli occupation forces and settlers. This information had not been confirmed by any official source. It was also not apparent which Palestinian media had reported the claim.

The Jerusalem Post later claimed that the Israeli army had named the attacker as Muhannad Al-Okabi, from the Bedouin town of Hura in the southern Naqab (Negev) region of present-day Israel. The same name was reported in other Israeli media, including Maariv.

Death-chanting mob

During the incident, a security guard shot 29-year-old Haftom Zarhum, an Eritrean refugee who was “misidentified” as a “terrorist,” according to Haaretz.  Zarhum later died of his injuries.
Zarhum came to Beer Sheva on Sunday to procure a visa.

Video captured by bystanders and posted to social media shows a mob of onlookers, including Israeli soldiers and police, kicking Zarhum in the head, pinning him under a chair and throwing a bench at him as he writhes on the floor, clearly in pain and bleeding severely.

Voices from the crowd can be heard chanting for Zarhum’s death, shouting “mehabel” (terrorist), “Kill him!” and “Break his head! Break his head! Son of a prostitute!”

Ynet reported that medics trying to evacuate Zarhum “ran into objection from the crowds at the scene, who blocked their way and called out ‘Death to Arabs,”Arabs out!’ and ‘Am Israel Chai’ (‘The people of Israel still live’).”

Haaretz correspondent Chaim Levinson tweeted a statement from an Israeli police spokesperson implying Zarhum might have been shot because of his race.

“I haven’t touched a word. The Police spokesman’s (Negev region) statement: One of the wounded persons, who was shot by security forces, is a foreign citizen; at the moment it is not clear if he is involved with the event or if he was shot due to his exterior appearance,” Levinson wrote.
Non-Jewish refugees from African states regularly experience extreme racism and hostility in Israel.
Israeli leaders have labeled them a “demographic threat” to Israel’s Jewish majority, as they have Palestinians. They are at constant risk of indefinite detention and deportation.

During preliminary questioning, the security guard who shot Zarhum was quoted by the Israeli news site Maariv, stating: “I was sure he was the terrorist, he wasn’t hiding like everyone else.”

“I saw him running toward me and not hiding like the others, so I shot him,” added the security guard.

However, another video of the incident, widely shared on social media, appears to show the shooting of Zarhum. It flatly contradicts the security guard’s account.

In the video, a man can be seen crawling on all fours, clearly posing no threat to anyone and likely trying to escape to safety, when a man with a handgun approaches and shoots him.

The shooting victim is then seen writhing on the floor in a similar position to the video showing Zarhum being attacked by the mob.

In both videos, the shooting victim is lying near the set of orange chairs used to attack Zarhum and near a dark line on the floor.

No one offers him medical assistance.

There have been other recent examples of such lynch mob behavior, including before and after the summary execution of Fadi Alloun, a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem, on 4 October. These mob killings come amid a growing chorus of incitement by Israeli leaders, who have openly encouraged vigilante revenge against Palestinians following stabbing attacks that have left seven Israelis dead.

Last week, a video captured Israelis screaming “Die you son of a prostitute!” at Ahmad Manasra as the Palestinian 13-year-old lay covered in blood and gasping on the ground. The boy and his cousin Khalid Manasra who was killed, were accused of involvement in a stabbing that injured two Israelis in the settlement of Pisgat Zeev.

Since 1 October Israeli forces have killed at least 42 Palestinians, many in what nine human rights groups condemned as “extrajudicial killings” of alleged attackers and Palestinian demonstrators.

Gag order

The Israeli government has placed a gag order on all aspects of the police investigation into the bus station attack until 18 November.


The gag order, which was leaked on social media, prohibits media from sharing “any detail about the investigation,” “any detail that could identify the suspects,” and “the fact of the existence of the investigation.”