Death in the Middle East

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/us-teen-appear-israeli-court-201476851982465.html

Jerusalem - A Palestinian-American teenager who activists say was subjected to a brutal beating by Israeli police has been freed on bail by a Jerusalem court pending an investigation.

Tariq Abu Khdeir, 15, was detained on Thursday in Shuafat in occupied East Jerusalem, during the second day of violent clashes that followed the killing of his Palestinian cousin, who was also a teenager.

His lawyer said bail conditions included 10 days house arrest, a $2,857 fine and a ban on him entering Shuafat.


Speaking after the hearing Abu Khdeir's father, Salah Abu Khdeir, told Al Jazeera there was no evidence.

"If my son was involved in throwing rocks, the Israelis would have kept him," he said. "If he was involved in the situation in Shuafat, they would have kept him."

A video released by Palestine TV showed three masked officers beating a handcuffed teenager and then dragging him away.

What's he being charged with? Getting his face in the way of police fists?

This won't last forever, LL, and one of these days Israel is going to pay a terrible price for these fascist tactics. And as usual, it won't be the high-ups that have caused the situation, it will be ordinary Israelis.

I posted this link on another thread, mainly because it mentions Sunnis and Shias fighting nearly a thousand years ago:

http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-battle-of-hattin-july-4-1187.html

Once they stopped fighting each other, it didn't take them long to throw the Crusaders out. I fear that one of these days, Israel is going to learn the same lesson as the Crusaders - that you can't hold down territory by violence and intimidation forever.

Israel has lost its way, IMO.

Remember Yitzak Eabin, PM of Israel, assassinated in 1995, by a radical right-wing ultra-Orthodox Jew?,  The reason for this?  He signed the Oslo Accords and got Arafat to acknowlegde the existence of Israel as a bona fide state.   Israel has regressed back, the Oslo Accods thrust aside and Netanyahu seems intent on making sure those agreements are buried as far as possible away from the Israeli collective memory.  He is the terrorist leader of a miltiarist state.  I am not surprised how many Jews outside Israel are repelled with what is going on.    And before anyone reading this decides I am antiüsemitic, think again.  Read what I have written and take note that my eldest son's godparent is a Jew from Golders Green.   Lamplighter

I am anything but anti-semitic, LL. I used to admire Israel, for founding their state, their advances in farming, etc., and not least fighting off so many enemies when they were outnumbered.

But what the state has turned into? There's nothing admirable about that, it's little different from any other state that rules by terror. The Israeli government seems to have forgotten that NO state can hold people down by terror and violence indefinitely, and I fear for ordinary Israelis when the day of reckoning comes.

Thanks for posting that LL. Will look forward to watching that. I had heard about the Palestinian woman about to give birth and thought that it was barbarian to do that to her.   

The time I spent living in the M.E. was a very wonderful time for learning and for interaction with people there. Many myths were dispelled but I also saw some nasty things in how people of the lower classes were treated. Jewish people could visit and work there but Israelis could not. The support for the Palestinians, especially the children and Syrians etc. was admirable. I made many new friends and found them delightful people.

I have close Jewish family members and I feel disappointed and deeply saddened that this is happening. I wish it were not. No one deserves to be treated like that.

The Israeli government is trying some frantic damage limitation, saying that tthe dead Palestinian teenager was killed for being a US citizen not in revenge for the Israeli teenagers.   And I have just seen on BBC News the damage done to the face of a 15 year old beaten almost to a pulp, black eyes and a swollen face.   LL,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2681654/Shocking-footage-shows-Israeli-police-savagely-beating-Palestinian-youth-emerges-teenager-murdered-extremists-burned-death-alive.html

You can imagine the amount of back peddling that is going on, LL.   

lily wrote:You can imagine the amount of back peddling that is going on, LL.    

 I understand the US is demanding answers re the beaten boy, a US citizen.  Maybe the US support for Israel may lessen which would, I feel,; be a bl**dy good thing.   They will go on like thjis as long as the world's on;y superpower back them in everything they do.   I think now is the time for the US to step up to the plate and state firmly that enough is enough.   LL

IMO, Israel shouldn't even be thinking about trying to talk its way out of this one. They could always try something different - like admitting they did it and charging those responsible. Israel's image stinks right now, frankly, and they can either carry on doing the same old, same old, with the same results - more violence. And one of these days, Israel is going to lose.

Or they can stop it and try to find a way for everyone in the area to move forward and live in some semblance of peace.

The irony is, if this teenager hadn't turned out to be an American, he'd just have been another 'Palestinian terrorist' dealt with firmly by the Israeli authorities.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/07/06/israel-police-seek-to-extend-detention-american-teen/

President Shimon Peres said Sunday that Israel would get to the bottom of Abu Khdeir's killing and bring whoever is responsible to justice.

"If Jews are becoming killers, they will be put to court like any killer," he told a gathering of foreign journalists in the southern town Sderot, where he was meeting with local residents enduring the ongoing rocket barrages from neighboring Gaza. "Whoever was killed for us was murdered, for us is a victim."

At least that sounds right.....

Yes, that's hopeful, Lily.

They have to do something this time.

The Israeli government - and I differentiate between governments and people - simply cannot go on like this, IMO, Lily.

The US is about its only remaining friend, and relations are already chilly. They couldn't have done worse than beat up an American kid and prove to the rest of the world that they are indeed, at the very least, heavy-handed. And often worse.

Peres has little or no power, he's just a front man. It's Netanyahu who rules, aided by some rather unsavory yes men, one of which, Mark Regev, is the main mouthpiece of the Government,he is the one who you usually see giving interviews.he comes over as a hardline anti-Palestinian. From Wikipedia: In 2010, after the Gaza flotilla raid, Ruth Sunderland of The Observer described Regev as the "spin doctor in chief for the Israeli government" and said that "he is unlikely to win sceptics to Israel's cause" John Pilger described Regev's role as "Israel's chief propagandist" He comes over as someone I wouldn't like to meet on a dark night on the road to Jerusalem. LL

One to one? He'd probably run away from you, LL. These mouthy 'hard men' are all the same, great at throwing their weight around when they've got thugs in uniform to protect them.

bb1 wrote:One to one? He'd probably run away from you, LL. These mouthy 'hard men' are all the same, great at throwing their weight around when they've got thugs in uniform to protect them.

He's mouthy and very glib, he is from Australia and is a lawyer so his English is very good and he comes over to the unitiated as reasonable and pleasant. But underneath he is a bully and a thug, so I am told by those who have met him. He is also ruthless and doesn't care how things pan out just so long as Israel comes out on top. Chaim likens him to Josef Goebbels, slick as they come and about as trustworthy. LL

They need to calm down and take a good long hard look at themselves and what they are doing. They are truly showing themselves as ugly thugs to the rest of the world.

Am only half way through the video but am so angry already. I know I have seen programs about this before but not by an Israeli journo. Bless Gideon Levy for exposing this.

Man's inhumanity to man.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.603317

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/clashes-spread-palestinian-boys-funeral-24436049

It is believed the boy may have still been alive when he was set on fire. LL

The Israel Police have arrested six suspects over the abduction and murder of a Palestinian teen and are leaning toward suspicion that the attack was carried out with nationalist motives, it was revealed on Sunday after a gag order was partially lifted.

Police increasingly believe that murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, whose body was found in the Jerusalem Forest on Wednesday, was carried out by Jewish extremists in revenge over the recent kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, the Associated Press reported quoting an official.

Oh my God. If that proves correct, the whole area is going to erupt.

Oh my God. If that proves correct, the whole area is going to erupt.

Afraid so, Bonny.

OMG that must have been horrific for him.   

On the Austrian news earlier they said his lungs were full of smoke which, if he was already dead, ias not possib;le. LL

I read that in the article LL. Exactly.   

Am at the point on the video where the one son was killed. The army person responsible was sentenced by the court to one hour imprisonment......

Am too upset to watch the rest at the moment.

In a world of horrors, this is one of the worst. And if it does turn out to be Israeli extremists, then they may well have lit the fuse that destroys Israel. It's in a league of barbarism all of its own.