26 july 2010
Mahmoud Ghanaim 24
A decision by Israel’s Supreme Court to double a 15-month jail term for a policeman who shot dead an unarmed Palestinian driver suspected of stealing a car has provoked denunciations from police commanders and government officials.
Yitzhak Aharonovitch, the internal security minister, condemned the judges for “sending a terrible message to police officers”.
On the advice of police lawyers, the accused policeman, Shahar Mizrahi, had appealed his conviction last year in the expectation that the ruling would be overturned by the Supreme Court.
Mr Aharonovitch and Dudi Cohen, the police commissioner, said they would immediately seek a presidential pardon for Mizrahi. “I won’t merely support a pardon bid, I’ll lead it,” Mr Aharonovitch said.
But groups representing Israel’s large Palestinian Arab minority said the outrage at the doubling of the 15-month sentence for Mizrahi reflected the reality that the police force expected impunity when it used violence against Israel’s Palestinian citizens, who comprise a fifth of the population.
A decision by Israel’s Supreme Court to double a 15-month jail term for a policeman who shot dead an unarmed Palestinian driver suspected of stealing a car has provoked denunciations from police commanders and government officials.
Yitzhak Aharonovitch, the internal security minister, condemned the judges for “sending a terrible message to police officers”.
On the advice of police lawyers, the accused policeman, Shahar Mizrahi, had appealed his conviction last year in the expectation that the ruling would be overturned by the Supreme Court.
Mr Aharonovitch and Dudi Cohen, the police commissioner, said they would immediately seek a presidential pardon for Mizrahi. “I won’t merely support a pardon bid, I’ll lead it,” Mr Aharonovitch said.
But groups representing Israel’s large Palestinian Arab minority said the outrage at the doubling of the 15-month sentence for Mizrahi reflected the reality that the police force expected impunity when it used violence against Israel’s Palestinian citizens, who comprise a fifth of the population.
Mahmoud Abu Satah Ghanayims killer Shahar Mizrahi
At Mizrahi’s original trial last year, the district court judge, Menachem Finkelstein, ruled that the policeman had acted “recklessly” during an operation to stop car thefts in the Jewish town of Pardes Hanna in 2006.
Despite his life never being in danger, Mizrahi had used the butt of his gun to smash the window of a car in which Mahmoud Ghanaim, 24, was seated and shot him in the head from close range. The court also noted that Mizrahi had changed his testimony several times during the investigations.
According to Mossawa, an advocacy group, 40 Palestinian citizens have been killed in suspicious circumstances by the security forces over the past decade. Mizrahi is the first policeman to be convicted in such a case.
As of yesterday, an online petition calling on the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, to pardon Mizrahi had attracted more than 5,000 signatures in a few days, and a Facebook page supporting the policeman had 1,300 fans.
Gideon Levy, a columnist with the liberal Haaretz newspaper, warned yesterday that those “siding with Mizrahi are eager to have a police force that kills — but just Arabs, of course”.
Jafar Farah, the director of Mossawa, said: “The atmosphere of racism in Israel is being used to destroy the legal system from the inside, using the justification that Arabs are being killed.
“The reality today is that the police can kill an Arab citizen in any circumstances and know that there is almost no chance they will pay a price. The safeguards are being stripped away.”
Relations between Israel’s Palestinian minority and the police have been marked by profound distrust since late 2000, when police shot dead 13 protesters and wounded hundreds more during largely non-violent demonstrations in the Galilee at the start of the second intifada.
A subsequent state commission of inquiry found that the police had a long-standing policy of treating the country’s 1.3 million Palestinian citizens “as an enemy” and recommended that several officers be prosecuted for their role in the 13 deaths.
After a long delay, state prosecutors announced in 2008 that no one would be charged.
In several speeches since he took over as security minister last year, Mr Aharonovitch has promised measures to restore the minority’s faith in the police, including recruiting more police officers from the Palestinian population and fighting high rates of crime in Arab communities.
According to a police report submitted to the parliament earlier this year, only 382 of more than 21,000 police officers are Muslim – or less than two per cent.
At the appeal hearing last week, the Supreme Court increased Mizrahi’s jail sentence after ruling that Judge Finkelstein had not given enough weight to the victim’s life and the value of deterring similar police behaviour in the future. Under police regulations, Mizrahi was entitled only to shoot out the car’s tyres or fire at Ghanaim’s legs.
Immediately after the ruling, Mr Aharonovitch reported that he had called Mizrahi to tell him: “Your fight has become all of our fight.”
He was backed by several retired police commanders and a Likud MP, Danny Danon, who said he would submit a bill barring the indictment of police officers who open fire when they believe they are in danger.
In a sign of the mounting pressure from police groups on the Supreme Court, it issued a rare “clarification” statement of its judgment, pointing out that Ghanaim’s car was travelling too slowly to have ever put Mizrahi in any danger.
Mr Farah added that Mossawa’s investigations had revealed that, despite police claims, Ghanaim was the documented owner of the car he was driving.
The police, Mr Farah added, had supported Mizrahi throughout the case and had continued paying his police salary after his conviction.
The court’s decision to increase Mizrahi’s sentence came in the wake of strong suspicions that police officers executed a Palestinian driver in East Jerusalem last month, shooting him twice in the head from close range as he lay on the ground.
Moments earlier, Ziad Jilani, who was married with three children, had fled on foot after driving into a detail of police, injuring several officers, in the Wadi Joz neighbourhood. Witnesses said a stone had smashed his windscreen seconds before he swerved.
In one of the few other recent prosecutions of a policeman for killing a Palestinian citizen, Rubi Gai was acquitted last year of the manslaughter of Nadim Milham, who was shot in the back during a police search of his home for weapons. Witnesses testified that police had beaten Milham and that he was shot as he fled.
A survey published last month by Haifa University found that only one in five Palestinian citizens expressed faith in the police.
Mr Aharonovitch upset the Palestinian minority last year during an inspection of undercover narcotics agents in Tel Aviv. He was caught on camera telling one detective dressed as a drug addict he looked like “a real Araboosh”, a derogatory Hebrew term for Arabs.
The minister, who is a member of Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right party Yisrael Beiteinu, apologised but added that the comment was a “moment of banter”.
Mahash, the justice ministry’s police investigations unit, has been harshly criticised for the small proportion of complaints against the police it agrees to investigate. It rarely prosecutes officers.
The police have also refused to cooperate in imposing official sanctions on wayward officers, with critics saying that officers found to have acted negilgently or violently towards Palestinian citizens are often rewarded with promotion.
The state commission of inquiry into the killing by police of 13 Palestinian protesters in October 2000 recommended that several officers be dismissed from service or denied promotion. The recommendations were disregarded.
In one notorious case, the commission found that Benzi Sau, a northern Border Police commander, had acted with gross negligence in allowing snipers to shoot at stone-throwing demonstrators. Despite suggesting a ban on his promotion for four years, he rapidly rose through the ranks, becoming head of the Border Police in Jerusalem in 2001 and national head of the Border Police in 2004.
At Mizrahi’s original trial last year, the district court judge, Menachem Finkelstein, ruled that the policeman had acted “recklessly” during an operation to stop car thefts in the Jewish town of Pardes Hanna in 2006.
Despite his life never being in danger, Mizrahi had used the butt of his gun to smash the window of a car in which Mahmoud Ghanaim, 24, was seated and shot him in the head from close range. The court also noted that Mizrahi had changed his testimony several times during the investigations.
According to Mossawa, an advocacy group, 40 Palestinian citizens have been killed in suspicious circumstances by the security forces over the past decade. Mizrahi is the first policeman to be convicted in such a case.
As of yesterday, an online petition calling on the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, to pardon Mizrahi had attracted more than 5,000 signatures in a few days, and a Facebook page supporting the policeman had 1,300 fans.
Gideon Levy, a columnist with the liberal Haaretz newspaper, warned yesterday that those “siding with Mizrahi are eager to have a police force that kills — but just Arabs, of course”.
Jafar Farah, the director of Mossawa, said: “The atmosphere of racism in Israel is being used to destroy the legal system from the inside, using the justification that Arabs are being killed.
“The reality today is that the police can kill an Arab citizen in any circumstances and know that there is almost no chance they will pay a price. The safeguards are being stripped away.”
Relations between Israel’s Palestinian minority and the police have been marked by profound distrust since late 2000, when police shot dead 13 protesters and wounded hundreds more during largely non-violent demonstrations in the Galilee at the start of the second intifada.
A subsequent state commission of inquiry found that the police had a long-standing policy of treating the country’s 1.3 million Palestinian citizens “as an enemy” and recommended that several officers be prosecuted for their role in the 13 deaths.
After a long delay, state prosecutors announced in 2008 that no one would be charged.
In several speeches since he took over as security minister last year, Mr Aharonovitch has promised measures to restore the minority’s faith in the police, including recruiting more police officers from the Palestinian population and fighting high rates of crime in Arab communities.
According to a police report submitted to the parliament earlier this year, only 382 of more than 21,000 police officers are Muslim – or less than two per cent.
At the appeal hearing last week, the Supreme Court increased Mizrahi’s jail sentence after ruling that Judge Finkelstein had not given enough weight to the victim’s life and the value of deterring similar police behaviour in the future. Under police regulations, Mizrahi was entitled only to shoot out the car’s tyres or fire at Ghanaim’s legs.
Immediately after the ruling, Mr Aharonovitch reported that he had called Mizrahi to tell him: “Your fight has become all of our fight.”
He was backed by several retired police commanders and a Likud MP, Danny Danon, who said he would submit a bill barring the indictment of police officers who open fire when they believe they are in danger.
In a sign of the mounting pressure from police groups on the Supreme Court, it issued a rare “clarification” statement of its judgment, pointing out that Ghanaim’s car was travelling too slowly to have ever put Mizrahi in any danger.
Mr Farah added that Mossawa’s investigations had revealed that, despite police claims, Ghanaim was the documented owner of the car he was driving.
The police, Mr Farah added, had supported Mizrahi throughout the case and had continued paying his police salary after his conviction.
The court’s decision to increase Mizrahi’s sentence came in the wake of strong suspicions that police officers executed a Palestinian driver in East Jerusalem last month, shooting him twice in the head from close range as he lay on the ground.
Moments earlier, Ziad Jilani, who was married with three children, had fled on foot after driving into a detail of police, injuring several officers, in the Wadi Joz neighbourhood. Witnesses said a stone had smashed his windscreen seconds before he swerved.
In one of the few other recent prosecutions of a policeman for killing a Palestinian citizen, Rubi Gai was acquitted last year of the manslaughter of Nadim Milham, who was shot in the back during a police search of his home for weapons. Witnesses testified that police had beaten Milham and that he was shot as he fled.
A survey published last month by Haifa University found that only one in five Palestinian citizens expressed faith in the police.
Mr Aharonovitch upset the Palestinian minority last year during an inspection of undercover narcotics agents in Tel Aviv. He was caught on camera telling one detective dressed as a drug addict he looked like “a real Araboosh”, a derogatory Hebrew term for Arabs.
The minister, who is a member of Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right party Yisrael Beiteinu, apologised but added that the comment was a “moment of banter”.
Mahash, the justice ministry’s police investigations unit, has been harshly criticised for the small proportion of complaints against the police it agrees to investigate. It rarely prosecutes officers.
The police have also refused to cooperate in imposing official sanctions on wayward officers, with critics saying that officers found to have acted negilgently or violently towards Palestinian citizens are often rewarded with promotion.
The state commission of inquiry into the killing by police of 13 Palestinian protesters in October 2000 recommended that several officers be dismissed from service or denied promotion. The recommendations were disregarded.
In one notorious case, the commission found that Benzi Sau, a northern Border Police commander, had acted with gross negligence in allowing snipers to shoot at stone-throwing demonstrators. Despite suggesting a ban on his promotion for four years, he rapidly rose through the ranks, becoming head of the Border Police in Jerusalem in 2001 and national head of the Border Police in 2004.
Top settler rabbi arrested for allegedly inciting to kill non-Jews
Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira is the alleged author of a book which deems as legal, according to 'Jewish law,' the killing of non-Jews.
The head rabbi of a prominent yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar was arrested Monday for writing a book that allegedly encourages the killing of non-Jews.
Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira is the alleged author of the book "The King's Torah," which deems as legal, according to "Jewish law," the killing of non-Jews.
Police began investigating Shapira after an advertisement for the book in a Hebrew newspaper created a public uproar.
Deputy Attorney General Shai Nitzan encouraged the investigation as he believed the book contained an incitement to violence.
On Monday morning, police detectives arrived at the settlement of Yitzhar, arrested Shapira and confiscated 30 copies of his book.
Shapira is head of a yeshiva (a type of center for Jewish study) which supports replacing the government with a religious monarchy.
Shapira was arrested this past January for his alleged involvement in the torching of a Palestinian mosque in the village of Yasuf, but was later released.
The head rabbi of a prominent yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar was arrested Monday for writing a book that allegedly encourages the killing of non-Jews.
Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira is the alleged author of the book "The King's Torah," which deems as legal, according to "Jewish law," the killing of non-Jews.
Police began investigating Shapira after an advertisement for the book in a Hebrew newspaper created a public uproar.
Deputy Attorney General Shai Nitzan encouraged the investigation as he believed the book contained an incitement to violence.
On Monday morning, police detectives arrived at the settlement of Yitzhar, arrested Shapira and confiscated 30 copies of his book.
Shapira is head of a yeshiva (a type of center for Jewish study) which supports replacing the government with a religious monarchy.
Shapira was arrested this past January for his alleged involvement in the torching of a Palestinian mosque in the village of Yasuf, but was later released.
19 july 2010
Lesser sentence for activist killer
Tom Hurndall
Taysir Hayeb was convicted in shooting of 22-yr-old UK protester.
Taysir Hayeb, a soldier who fatally shot a British peace activist, will be released from prison next month, a year and a half early, a military committee ruled on Monday.
Twenty-two year-old Tom Hurndall was shot in Rafah in April 2003 and died after nine months in a coma. The photographer was working at the time as a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement and was documenting the group’s work in the area.
Accounts from the time of the shooting have differed, but it has been reported that Hayeb shot the unarmed Hurndall as he was trying to help Palestinian children move away from an exchange of live gunfire.
Hayeb was convicted of manslaughter and several other charges, including obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to eight years imprisonment in 2005. He served three years in a military prison, after which he was transferred to begin a rehabilitation program with the Israel Prison Service. He will have served six and a half year before being released for good behavior.
Hayeb’s lawyer told the committee that his client’s rehabilitation had been a success. Hayeb said he was engaged and wanted to start a family. The committee dismissed the military prosecutor’s contention that a sentence reduction could damage relations between Israel and the UK, and said that in its view he no longer posed a threat to society.
Taysir Hayeb was convicted in shooting of 22-yr-old UK protester.
Taysir Hayeb, a soldier who fatally shot a British peace activist, will be released from prison next month, a year and a half early, a military committee ruled on Monday.
Twenty-two year-old Tom Hurndall was shot in Rafah in April 2003 and died after nine months in a coma. The photographer was working at the time as a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement and was documenting the group’s work in the area.
Accounts from the time of the shooting have differed, but it has been reported that Hayeb shot the unarmed Hurndall as he was trying to help Palestinian children move away from an exchange of live gunfire.
Hayeb was convicted of manslaughter and several other charges, including obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to eight years imprisonment in 2005. He served three years in a military prison, after which he was transferred to begin a rehabilitation program with the Israel Prison Service. He will have served six and a half year before being released for good behavior.
Hayeb’s lawyer told the committee that his client’s rehabilitation had been a success. Hayeb said he was engaged and wanted to start a family. The committee dismissed the military prosecutor’s contention that a sentence reduction could damage relations between Israel and the UK, and said that in its view he no longer posed a threat to society.
10 july 2010
Israel closes case of Silwan shooting
Israel's attorney general has closed the case of a shooting by an Israeli soldier who was visiting the City of David illegal settlement in the Wadi Helwa neighborhood in Silwan, East Jerusalem.
The soldier was carrying an M16 rifle and opened fire at member of the Wadi Helwa committee Ahmad Qara’een, 40, who was shot in the foot and Ameer Froukh, 13, while he was riding his bike in the neighborhood.
The case was closed due to lack of evidence, the attorney general said.
Ahmad Qara’een said that the outcome was inexplicable as he had submitted witnesses, photos, and medical reports to Israeli officials.
"Meanwhile, they accused me of attempting to snatch a soldier's rifle, and interrogated my two children Wadee and Ali, who are 11 and 10. That same soldier harshly beat my two sons, and Ameer Froukh was shot in the foot while riding his bike," Qara'een said.
Ramadan Al-Bana of the Wadi Helwa Information Center said “Israeli soldiers always punish the victim and always look at us Palestinians as criminals. This is what we have come to expect from Israeli soldiers, who turn us into suspects and portray themselves as victims."
Tensions boiled over Saturday when a group of Israeli settlers accosted members of the At-Taweel family, relatives said, claiming that their home was owned by the King David project and ordering them to leave.
Residents of the neighborhood arrived at the scene but the settlers left before any major disturbances.
The soldier was carrying an M16 rifle and opened fire at member of the Wadi Helwa committee Ahmad Qara’een, 40, who was shot in the foot and Ameer Froukh, 13, while he was riding his bike in the neighborhood.
The case was closed due to lack of evidence, the attorney general said.
Ahmad Qara’een said that the outcome was inexplicable as he had submitted witnesses, photos, and medical reports to Israeli officials.
"Meanwhile, they accused me of attempting to snatch a soldier's rifle, and interrogated my two children Wadee and Ali, who are 11 and 10. That same soldier harshly beat my two sons, and Ameer Froukh was shot in the foot while riding his bike," Qara'een said.
Ramadan Al-Bana of the Wadi Helwa Information Center said “Israeli soldiers always punish the victim and always look at us Palestinians as criminals. This is what we have come to expect from Israeli soldiers, who turn us into suspects and portray themselves as victims."
Tensions boiled over Saturday when a group of Israeli settlers accosted members of the At-Taweel family, relatives said, claiming that their home was owned by the King David project and ordering them to leave.
Residents of the neighborhood arrived at the scene but the settlers left before any major disturbances.
