http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=54726&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
The price of restraint
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz
Sunday, July 22, 2001
On Thursday evening, three members of the Tmeizi family were ambushed
and murdered, including a 10-week-old infant, Diya, and the recently
married young man, Mohammed. One may assume that the murderers -
almost certainly Israelis, apparently settlers - will be apprehended
shortly since the Shin Bet security services and the police will make
a special effort to capture them this time: The murder was a
particularly shocking one, which was quickly denounced by the
country's leaders.
But even if this is the case, the three deaths are the direct result
of the restraint of the law and order authorities. After all, even if
the murderers are apprehended, tried and convicted - a rare occurrence
in the case of violent acts committed by settlers - they will serve
minimal sentences, to judge by past experience.
The restraint has its roots in the first Intifada. Even then, Israel
chose to close its eyes to civilian violence in the occupied
territories. Out of 48 cases in which Palestinians were killed by
Israeli citizens, 27 cases were closed before any charges were filed.
These statistics have only gotten worse over time: A report published
about four months ago by B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for
Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, documents 199 cases of
manslaughter and murder of Palestinians by Israeli citizens; only six
yielded murder convictions. In six cases of death, the police did not
initiate an investigation, and in another 39 the cases were closed.
The punishments were also minimal: The sentences of four of the Jews
who were convicted of murder were reduced, five of those convicted of
manslaughter were sentenced to less than four years in prison, and
five of the seven Israelis convicted of negligent manslaughter did
community service instead of prison time.
On the other hand, in all 114 cases of murder and manslaughter of
Israelis by Palestinians in the territories (up to March of this
year), the cases were investigated. Thirty Palestinians were convicted
of murder, 17 were killed by the security forces, 12 homes of
murderers were demolished. No sentences were shortened, and of course
there is no point in even mentioning a pardon.
This picture is a difficult and infuriating one when it comes to less
serious crimes than murder and manslaughter, too. In most cases of
violence or damage to property, no investigation is ever initiated.
The message is clear: It isn't terrible to kill Arabs, hurting them or
their property is almost normal. Revenge is understood and sometimes
also permitted, as long as it's Jewish.
This situation has reached a new low in recent weeks. In a time of
increasing Palestinian terror, no day passes without pogroms by
settlers, and the police, the Israel Defense Forces and the other
security forces stand there, sometimes closing their eyes and
sometimes winking. Amir Ahmed, 13, was badly wounded when he was shot
by settlers. Abdallah Ka'ik, an Israeli Arab who was mistakenly
thought to be from the territories, was badly beaten. Settlers
rampaged in Kifal Harith, near the West Bank city of Ariel, and
injured 15 people. In Sinjil, north of Ramallah, settlers fired shots,
burned and destroyed property. Near the Gaza Strip settlement of Kfar
Yam, settlers destroyed property and rioted. In Hebron, settlers
smashed shops and injured police officers and soldiers. In Silat Al
Dahar, settlers shot at passengers in a car. Mustafa Alian of the
Askar refugee camp was stoned to death. Two olive harvesters were
badly injured near the settlement of Yitzhar. Tahrir Rizq was shot in
the head and killed near Hizmeh.
In most of these cases and in many others, no one was arrested. Yaron
Degani and Gad Tena of Itamar, who were arrested on suspicion of
killing olive harvester Farid Nasasrah, were released after five days
on the grounds of "insufficient evidence" and "the Palestinian
Authority is not cooperating in the murder investigation."
After four shooting incidents similar to the one at Idna last
Thursday, no one was arrested although the head of the Shin Bet is
already speaking about a "Jewish terror cell" and it should be
relatively easy to apprehend because of the small population from
which it is reckoned to have come.
The restraint over actions by the extreme right includes all
governmental authorities: the police, the IDF, the Shin Bet, the
courts and the authorities that grant pardons. It is a dangerous
restraint, whose putrid fruits led to the most recent murder at Idna:
The persons who carried it out believed that their chances of getting
caught were infinitesimal.
Responsibility for this murder, like its predecessors, must then also
lie at the feet of the Israeli legal authorities. The writing has been
on the wall for a long time: suffice it to look at the 1982 Karp
Report and the 1994 Shamgar Report on settler violence against
Palestinians. Even Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, whom no one
could accuse of hating settlers, spoke in 1998 about a "continuing and
serious situation of under-enforcement of the law against Israelis
living in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip."
Beyond the legal and moral aspect of a state that discriminates
between peoples, permits acts of violence and murder by closing its
eyes and treats the crimes of its citizens with understanding - the
restraint has a heavy price. It has already led to much bloodshed, on
both sides, and in the end it will lead to acts that even the extreme
right could be sorry for. Settlers from Yitzhar have already
threatened an IDF officer with drawn guns; in Hebron soldiers have
been hit more than once.
Anyone who shows forgiveness to those who burn fields, pardons those
who beat up Arabs and does not punish their murderers, will one day
also be faced with the killers of Israeli soldiers.
In the meantime, the restraint also undermines Israeli arguments
regarding the PA's inability to fight terror: it is a little hard to
complain about the "revolving door," the lack of arrests and failure
to prevent terror at a time that Israel, a sovereign state rich in
security apparatuses, does the same thing when it comes to its own,
homegrown terror.
