The decision to
prosecute 12 Israeli Arabs over what the local media have described as the
“lynching” of an Israeli soldier on a bus shortly after he shot dead the driver
and three passengers has been greeted with outrage from the country’s Arab
minority.
The inhabitants
of Shefa’amr, one of the largest Arab towns in the Galilee region and the
location of the attack, are expected to stage a one-day strike today in protest
against the indictments. Seven of the 12 face charges of attempted murder.
Jafar Farah,
the head of Mossawa, an Arab political lobbying group, said the indictments,
which follow a series of about-turns by state prosecutors, reflected “the
current harsher political climate” for the Arab minority, one-fifth of the
country’s population.
A right-wing
government, established this year, includes the party of Avigdor Lieberman,
which is openly hostile to Arabs.
Anger at the
indictments has been compounded by a decision taken by the prosecution service a
few days earlier to formally close an investigation into possible assistance the
soldier, Eden Natan Zada, received from Jewish extremist groups.
Nakad Nakad, a
member of a Shefa’amr public committee set up after Zada’s attack, said that the
prosecution had “decided in this case that the victim is the guilty party”.
Zada, who was
19, carried out his attack in Aug 2005 in what was widely seen as an attempt to
foil the government’s withdrawal of settlers from Gaza, which was due to take
place days later. Zada was a member of Tapuah, an extremist religious settlement
in the West Bank.
He took a bus
into Shefa’amr with his army-issued M-16 rifle and a backpack stuffed with
ammunition. According to witnesses, when the bus stopped, he shot the driver and
sprayed the rest of the bus with bullets, killing three passengers and wounding
22.
Zada was
overpowered after a female passenger grabbed the gun while he was trying to
reload.
Police arrived
a short time later and handcuffed Zada as residents surrounded the bus.
According to police testimony, a tense stand-off developed before a group
stormed the bus and beat Zada to death.
The incident
was politically charged from its first moments.
Initial reports
on Israeli TV showed a caption under Zada’s picture of “God bless his soul” --
usually reserved for Jewish victims of Palestinian terror attacks.
Zada’s two
dozen victims, all Arabs, as well as their families, were denied state
compensation after a ministerial panel ruled that a serving soldier could not be
regarded as a terrorist.
Israel’s Arab
minority were further angered by police inquiries that concentrated almost
exclusively on the circumstances of Zada’s death.
Maher Talhami,
a lawyer for three of the suspects in Shefa’amr, said police had recommended
that parallel investigations into Zada’s connections to Kach, a group officially
banned but openly espoused by extremist settlers, be closed after only four
months.
Kach demands
the violent expulsion of all Arabs from both Israel and the occupied
territories.
“The
authorities want Zada to be seen as a lone madman but the research we’ve
conducted suggests he was part of a larger Jewish terror organisation that
operates freely even though it’s outside the law. It appears the attack was
organised and planned.”
Another lawyer,
familiar with the case who wished not to be identified, said: “Politics is
playing a much larger part in the indictments than legal issues.” She said the
conduct of the prosecution in the case had been highly unusual and inconsistent.
It took 10
months to charge the first suspects, who were placed under house arrest. A year
later, after seeing secret police evidence, a judge ruled that the suspects were
unlikely ever to be indicted and lifted the restrictions on them.
Their bail
money was returned in April 2008, under protest from the police. Two months
later, the prosecution did a U-turn and announced that all 12 would be charged
with violent assault.
On Sunday more
severe charges of attempted murder were imposed on seven of them, with the rest
accused of assaulting police officers. A conviction for attempted murder carries
a maximum 20-year jail term.
Mr Talhami said
that although he did not condone people taking the law into their hands, it was
important to note that official Israeli policy was to show no mercy to those
committing terrorist attacks.
“Arab and
Jewish citizens watch the same Israeli TV and we see the state regularly
honouring Jewish civilians and police for killing terrorists without
compunction, even when they are ‘confirming the kill’ of someone who is already
injured and posing no threat.”
He referred
specifically to the case of an injured Palestinian who was shot dead by an
Israeli policeman in Dimona in February last year as he lay bleeding on the
ground after a suicide attack went wrong. “There was not even an investigation
in that case, let alone an outcry,” he said.
Several
analysts have also noted that the faith of Israel’s Arab population in the
justice system has been severely eroded, particularly by the failure to
prosecute any of the Israeli policemen who shot dead 13 unarmed Arab citizens
during demonstrations in October 2000.
Arab
legislators in the Knesset from all parties denounced the indictments. Jamal
Zahalka of the Tajamu party said: “We demanded, and we are continuing to demand,
an objective commission of inquiry to reveal who was behind Zada, who helped him
and who authorised his pogrom in Shefa’amr.”
Zada’s choice
of a Druze neighbourhood in Shefa’amr to stage his attack suggested an
unfamiliarity with the geography of the town and its politics.
Shefa’amr’s
population is mixed between Muslims, Christians and Druze, with the latter
community serving in the army and considered “loyal” by most Israeli Jews.
Jonathan Cook
is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are
“Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the
Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in
Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
A version of
this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published
in Abu Dhabi.
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