GUEST BLOG: Martin and Lois Griffiths – Israel murders in cold blood
Just imagine if:
In some imaginary Middle Eastern country, a town with a large Jewish population was occupied by a heavily armed Arab military presence. Now imagine a video being secretly made of an execution of a young Jewish man, who allegedly attempted to stab one of the Arab soldiers, lying on the ground badly wounded. The video then shows one of the soldiers walking up to the man on the ground and shooting him in the head, while other soldiers, and heavily armed Arab ‘settlers’, stand around watching. Then imagine the video getting into the hands of a human rights NGO and becoming public . The Arab population of our imaginary country hails the soldier as a hero, even though the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, describes the killing as having, “All the signs of clear case an extrajudicial execution.’
Would this fictional incident make headlines in every Western country including our own? Would it ever!! All of our newspaper & radio reports would tell us the name of the shooting victim, his age, papers would print his photos., we’d learn about his grieving family.
Opinion makers would be jumping up and down shouting how Arabs are inherently violent!
It so happens that just a few days ago, on 24 March, a real execution took place, by a soldier, of a badly wounded young man lying incapacitated on the ground after allegedly taking part in a stabbing attempt. The incident took place in Hebron in the West Bank. An IDF soldier executing a local Palestinian, Abed Fatah al Sharif, was filmed by a nearby Palestinian shoemaker who is now receiving death threats. The words quoted above were by Special Rapporteur Christof Heyns who added, “Whatever legal regime one applies to the case, shooting someone who is no longer a threat, is murder.”
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns today expressed his outrage at the killing of a Palestinian man by an Israeli soldier on 24 March in Hebron, West Bank, as he laid incapacitated on the ground following his alleged role in a knife attack.
Footage of the shooting of Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif was released by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, and others have subsequently also posted similar videos on the Internet.
“The images shown carry all the signs of a clear case of an extrajudicial execution,” the human rights expert stressed. “There does not appear to be any provocation on the side of the gravely wounded man.”
“Whatever legal regime one applies to the case, shooting someone who is no longer a threat is murder. It is furthermore troublesome that this was done to no apparent alarm to the other soldiers who were nearby,” Mr. Heyns said.
The Special Rapporteur expressed further concern at the decision of the medical personnel on the scene to ignore Mr. Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif and attend only to the injured Israeli soldier, who had sustained light injuries.
A poll conducted for an Israeli TV channel showed 57 percent of Israelis opposed the arrest of the soldier who did the shooting.
Is any of this story going to be covered by our media? Of course not , get real.
Some stories are best kept quiet. It’s an accepted Western concept that some lives matter and some do not.
Our media would perhaps justify their silence by claiming that there is no public interest in this story. But I have a Dunedin Quaker friend, a very brave woman, who, as a member of Christian Peacemakers, has spent time in Hebron, notorious for its violent religious fundamentalists, many with Brooklyn accents. I am aware of at least 3 other Kiwis, including myself, who have been to Hebron. The ‘settlers’ and IDF are openly violent there and will continue to be so as long as the West looks the other way.
Silence is complicity.
Lois and her husband Martin are retired teachers who are particularly concerned about the situation in historic Palestine, having been there several times, meeting Palestinians and Israeli human rights activists who desperately want the outside world to hear their narrative.
You’ve got something to say about this aye Andrew 😉 cue Iraeli apologist
Zionists can never refute the mounting evidence of Israeli war crimes and inhumanities, thus they respond either by trying to divert attention away from the topic or they resort to crude abuse. Lois and Martin’s witness for truth puts Zionism to shame.
And he was arrested, charged and is now facing manslaughter charges in court. It has also extensively been covered in Israeli media and all over CNN etc.
I’m not sure what your issue is?
Jollo, would and your fellow apologist for Israel, Andrew, rather that the story simply “went away”?
So really, whatever Israel does, you have an excuse?
It’s amazing how many fellow-travellers will support an aggressive, expansionist regime that is oppressing one of it’s neighbours; carrying out illegal settlement building on occupied land, and other hostile acts.
But if Palestinians dare to fight back, then you guys scream blue-bloody murder.
I think that about sums it up.
Jollo , it isn’t just one man who is guilty..it is all the bystanders, other IDF & settlers, who showed no concern about a badly wounded man being shot close up in the head. It’s the Israeli government and some Israeli rabbis too who encourage a policy of ‘take no prisoners’. It’s the media and public gatherings who are promoting the soldier to be a hero. It’s the Government who are saying that any IDF who try to tell the public what is really going on, “Breaking the Silence”, are traitors.
The ‘settlers’ who are threatening to kill the photographer with are guilty too.
I suspect that once the media loses interest in this story, and ‘moves on’, the soldier will given a light, if any, sentence.
The Talmud repeats the Ten Commandments TWICE so there is no excuse for devout and practising religious to keep breaking the basic rules – no murder. And ‘thou shalt not covet’.
It’s like Ireland and the Kurds and the Basques – ever-running, never-ending aggro, straight from the reptile brain. ‘The Hatfields and McCoys’ – unfortunately.
What a filthy legacy for either side to be leaving.
Respect to the people of loving kindness on both sides who do their best to relieve the curses of hatred.
Poor lil Arab.
Why did they shoot him.
All he wanted to do was stab some Jews.
He probably just needed a hug.
excerpts from report on Hebron murder in Haaretz by Gideon Levy
“This must be stated clearly. Perhaps for the first time in the history of the state, an abhorrent murder whose only obvious justification seems to be a hatred of Arabs and contempt for their lives, has become a heroic act. A murder that required no courage, a cowardly act of the highest order, has become heroic in the eyes of the masses, simply because it ended with a dead Palestinian bleeding on the road to the sound of their rejoicing.
Never have so many cheered such a vile murderer.
Israeli racism has reached a new peak. The murder in Tel Rumeida and the ensuing response are no less than seminal events. Israeli racism had previously been based on the arrogance of the Chosen People, to which everything is permitted, which is the very best and knows better than anyone else; on manipulating the perception of endless victimhood and persecution; on demonizing the Arabs, who only want to destroy us; on dehumanizing them, as if their lives are worth nothing; on incitement, denial, repression and lies and on Israel’s formidable military might. On these foundations we built a racist society, probably the most racist in the world today.
Now all this has been taken up a notch, or perhaps down. To all the above we can now openly add bloodlust — unadulterated, uninhibited and undisguised.
This combination of racism and thirst for blood is not only repulsive, it’s also volatile and dangerous. There is racism in many societies, generally hidden and marginal. In Israel it has become standard, perhaps the height of contemporary political correctness, and fighting it is seen as treason.
Moreover, it’s doubtful there’s another Western society whose racism is accompanied by such bloodlust. “