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Jefferson23

(30,099 posts)
Mon Nov 10, 2014, 09:58 PM Nov 2014

Police shooting of Arab Israeli youth could ignite Israel

November 10, 2014

Here is a short but fascinating lesson in Israeli-style democracy, equality and co-existence. Footage from a CCTV security camera documents the incident in the Arab Galilee village of Kafr Kana on Nov. 7, in which Israeli policemen killed a young Arab man. Now, imagine that the incident had taken place in the settlement of Yitzhar. Imagine that the 22-year-old man who banged on the windows of the police cruiser and then started backing away was not named Khair Hamdan, but rather Nir Hemed; that he was one of those known as “hilltop youth” who do not recognize government authority and who regularly harass the security forces. How would Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have reacted to Nir being shot to death in the back by the police? Would Netanyahu have pledged to examine the option of revoking the citizenship of members of the fanatic Jewish sect, as he did with the Palestinians who were involved in rioting? Would Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett have praised the policemen who killed Nir and rushed to their defense, before the Justice Ministry's police investigations unit had even decided whether shooting the young man in the back was justified or not?

The reactions of Arab members of the Knesset were, of course, completely different. Knesset member Ahmad Tibi claimed that Hamdan’s killing was typical of police attitudes toward the Arab public as “enemies which must be destroyed.” Tibi was not being original. An inquiry commission appointed by the government exactly 14 years before the fatal incident in Kafr Kana determined that “the police must imbue its policemen with the understanding that the Arab public at large is not their enemy, and it must not be treated as an enemy.”

The commission, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Theodore Or, investigated the events of October 2000, in which 13 Arab Israelis were killed by live police fire. In 2003, its members recommended “imbuing all police echelons with the importance of balanced and moderate conduct in relations with the Arab sector.”

The footage of the incident in Kafr Kana, and its severe result, do not point to “balanced and moderate conduct” by police in their relations with Arabs. According to a publication issued last month by the Mossawa Center for the rights of Israel’s Arab citizens, Hamdan is the 49th Arab-Israeli shot since the October 2000 riots by police, soldiers or Jewish citizens. Only two incidents ended with policemen being convicted and sentenced to very short jail terms — one receiving six months, the other 30 months. This was preceded by the decision of then-Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to dismiss complaints against all the policemen suspected in the killing of the 13 Arabs in the protests of 2000. The Israel Democracy Institute, which examined the evidence in three central cases, determined that the decision not to pursue them further “for lack of proof” was not justified and the Justice Ministry's police investigation unit and the state prosecutor’s office failed to see the investigation through to its end.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/11/israel-police-shot-kafr-kana-israeli-arab-or-commission.html#ixzz3Iim3aVpX

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Police shooting of Arab Israeli youth could ignite Israel (Original Post) Jefferson23 Nov 2014 OP
So there is a privileged class kinda sounds familiar. gordianot Nov 2014 #1
Oh yea. n/t Jefferson23 Nov 2014 #2
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