Video of the settler striking two Palestinian boys with his car in East Jerusalem

by on October 11, 2010 29
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About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine

{ 29 comments... read them below or add one }

  2. Sumud says:
    October 11, 2010 at 12:00 pm

    You need to watch the slightly longer version of this clip:

    link to youtube.com

    In the few extra seconds before impact it shows that the road to the settler’s right is open or has 1 kid (blue t-shirt), and the road to his left has 3-4 kids in it. The settler steers left, ie. deliberately into the children.

    I also see a black SUV parked on screem right, facing the other direction, it’s highly likely it’s a two-way street. Israelis drive on the right don’t they? Yet the settler is driving on the left side of the road, into children.

    What do other people think?

    Arabic speakers – can you understand what happens when the kid is freaking out about being put in the 4WD? He’s really terrified.

  3. Scott says:
    October 11, 2010 at 12:02 pm

    I dunno. It’s hard to drive carefully with stones thrown at you.

  4. Les says:
    October 11, 2010 at 12:12 pm

    A reminder that it is “occupied” East Jerusalem, and has been since Israel seized it in 1967.

  5. MRW says:
    October 11, 2010 at 12:41 pm

    He drove into those kids deliberately.

  6. hophmi says:
    October 11, 2010 at 1:01 pm

    What the longer clip shows is the kid running in front of a moving car about to throw a rock, a driver stopping as he hits the boys and blowing his horn, and then driving away to avoid further rocks and injury. I condemn all violence committed by the settlers toward the Palestinians. This is not an example of that.

    It is clear that the driver is trying not to hit the kids. That’s why he blows his horn.

    • occupyresist says:
      October 11, 2010 at 2:11 pm

      figured you would say that, hophmi.

    • Sumud says:
      October 11, 2010 at 2:21 pm

      It is clear that the driver is trying not to hit the kids. That’s why he blows his horn.

      It’s not clear at all. Stop it at 0:09 – he makes a choice to drive onto the wrong side of the road where the kids are.

    • kapok says:
      October 11, 2010 at 3:10 pm

      I condemn all violence committed by the settlers toward the Palestinians.

      you lie

    • pjdude says:
      October 11, 2010 at 3:29 pm

      actually the kids took a position that would have been to the side of the car had he choose not to run into them

    • talknic says:
      October 12, 2010 at 3:22 am

      hophmi

      The kids are running up the OPPOSITE SIDE of the street . The car veers to the left across the road towards them instead of taking the clear path on his right, (where he should be driving in a two way street) The white car near the camera blows it’s horn. (get your ears checked) The driver stopped AFTER he hit the boys. No one approached the car. He drove off un impeded. You’re guide dog should have an eye check before describing it to you again.

      The GC’s are to protect civilians by forbidding them to settle on “territories occupied” That this ILLEGAL settler can endanger his son’s life by purposefully ILLEGALLY settling in “territories occupied” is disgusting.

  7. hophmi says:
    October 11, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    I also hate to say it, but one has to wonder why there were so many cameramen around. Encouraging kids to run into the middle of street and throw rocks at moving cars is not defensible journalistically. That appears to be what’s happening here.

    • Dan Crowther says:
      October 11, 2010 at 1:16 pm

      A new low for Hophmi: “Encouraging kids to run into the middle of street and throw rocks at moving cars is not defensible journalistically. That appears to be what’s happening here. ”

      *****************

      This statement really speaks for itself. Why do they have camera’s? Because THEY HAVE NO OTHER RECOURSE!!!! If I were a Palestinian, ESPECIALLY IN SILWAN – I’d never stop filming. What a completely despicable comment from Hophmi, DESPICABLE.

    • Sumud says:
      October 11, 2010 at 2:26 pm

      There’s always lots of cameras around at protests. What do you see to indicate people with cameras are encouraging what took place? Or that journalists are defending throwing rocks at cars?

    • talknic says:
      October 12, 2010 at 3:38 am

      hophmi

      There was a protest. The press usually covers such events. The photos and video are AFP. You think they set it up?

      I seriously doubt kids who have lived under occupation ALL THEIR LIVES need any encouragement to throw probably all that remains of their homes at ILLEGAL settlers. I know, I know, you’d just lay down and let Israel f*ck over another generation of your people.

  8. Avi says:
    October 11, 2010 at 6:43 pm

    What exactly is the purpose of posting this video?

    • Kathleen says:
      October 12, 2010 at 8:24 am

      These violent crimes by radical illegal Israeli settlers have been kept under the rug for decades. Although Edward Said, Ilan Pappe, Archbishop Tutu, former President Jimmy Carter, Prof Norm Finkelstein, Art and Peggy Gish and many more have for decades tried to shine the light on these critical issues. Over the last five or so years many more have jumped on this human rights bus. Bringing new attention to these crimes, video taping, twittering, blogging, witnessing the crimes.

      The witnessing to these crimes being committed by the Israeli military, government and illegal and radical Israeli settlers is not going away.

  9. Kathleen says:
    October 12, 2010 at 8:19 am

    The illegal Israeli settler who hit the Palestinian boy and drove away is David Be’eri. David Be’eri spends part of his time stealing Palestinian lands and selling those stolen pieces of land off to Jewish buyers.
    link to time.com

    The story begins with a right-wing Jewish settler organization called Elad, but also known as the Ir David Foundation, which for the past four years has exerted control over most of the holy city’s excavations. Led by David Be’eri, an ex-Israeli commando who used to disguise himself as an Arab for undercover missions in the Palestinian territories, Elad now has the backing of the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, the municipality, and the vaunted Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), which monitors all archaeological work in the country and which Elad helps finance. Elad’s own funding comes through unnamed private donors. (Israeli newspapers have reported that a few Russian-Jewish oligarchs, including Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, attended a 2005 Elad fundraiser.) The organization’s aim is best expressed in a religious website’s 2007 interview with development director Doron Speilman. He gestures toward Silwan, an Arab neighborhood that spills down from the Mount of Olives, and says: “Our goal is to turn all this land you see behind you into Jewish hands.”

    Be’eri is clearly a criminal.

  10. hophmi says:
    October 13, 2010 at 11:01 am

    The longer clip shows that the kids are throwing rocks at a moving car and then running right at the car as the driver tries not to hit them. . The fact that Al Jazeera shows the few seconds meant to push this partisan narrative only confirms what we already know about al-Jazeera; they have their biases.

    As far as the cameramen, you have to be a little naive not to realize that the kids are much more likely to put on a show when there are cameramen around. That’s human nature. I’m not accusing the cameramen of setting anything up, though it’s possible they were involved, because we don’t know the souce of the video. But at best, they egg the situation on. If I were a Palestinian kid I might stand on the side and throw a rock. But if a lot of cameramen show up and I think I’m going to be on TV, I’m going to put on a show for him. That’s all I’m saying.

    Again, I’d try putting yourself in the place of the driver. You’re coming down the street and rocks are being thrown at your car, and then people are running toward you as they throw rocks. What would you have done? Would you have stayed there to be pummelled with rocks? For those of you who have driven through rock storms, please feel free to share your experiences with the rest of us.

    As far as going in reverse, there was a car behind him.

    By the way, Be’eri was arrested and released on bail. He has denied the allegations, so we will see in time what exactly happened.

  11. talknic says:
    October 13, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    hophmi October 13, 2010 at 11:01 am

    “The longer clip”

    Has exactly the same ‘cut in point’ of the car involved in the collision, the kids and rocks thrown.

    “The longer clip shows that the kids are throwing rocks at a moving car and then running right at the car as the driver tries not to hit them.”

    1) give the time stamp for each rock thrown

    2) veering across to the wrong side of the road IS NOT ‘trying to avoid’

    3) have your guide dog’s eyes tested, then get it to describe the video to you again

  12. tree says:
    October 13, 2010 at 5:42 pm

    This reminds me of an incident from 1997-2001. Don’t expect any criminal charges.

    Settler fined for clubbing Arab boy to death

    A Jewish settler who clubbed a Palestinian child to death with a rifle butt was sentenced to six months’ community service yesterday in a decision denounced as an outrage by human rights organisations.

    The Jerusalem district court said it decided not to jail Nachum Korman for the killing of 11-year-old Hilmi Shusha four years ago because he had only been convicted of manslaughter by negligence, and had served eight months in prison. It fined him 70,000 shekels (about £11,600).

    The sentence handed down by the Jerusalem district court yesterday is especially suspect because it was determined by the same judge, Ruth Or, who acquitted Korman at his original trial after rejecting evidence from witnesses and the state pathologist.

    That verdict was overturned by the supreme court, which convicted him of manslaughter and sent him back to the district court for sentencing.

    Korman, the chief of security at the Hadar Beitar settlement, descended on the Shushas’ West Bank village in October 1996 to hunt down a group of children who had been pelting Jewish cars with stones.

    Cousins of the dead boy, who saw the assault, said he pinned Hilmi down with his foot before delivering the fatal blow. Korman claimed he never intended to kill the child, and said he tried to revive him.

    The boy’s father, Said Shusha, told Israel radio the sentence amounted to “giving people a licence to kill”.

    The B’Tselem human rights organisation said the sentence was part of a pattern of institutions turning a blind eye to abuses of Palestinians by Israelis while showing no mercy to Arabs accused of causing injury to Jews. It said such leniency prevailed long before the intifada, and mobs of Jewish settlers have often been accused of attacking Palestinian villagers in the West Bank.

    “At a time when violence by Israeli civilians against Palestinians is increasing, the court’s decision sends the message that Palestinian life is cheap, and that Israeli civilians in the occupied territories can continue to abuse Palestinians with impunity,” B’Tselem said in a statement.

    The decision is bound to deepen criticism of systematic racial prejudice in Israel’s law enforcement system.

    Also yesterday, the governing body of Israel’s 1m Palestinian citizens submitted an investigative report to the supreme court, accusing the government of sanctioning a shoot-to-kill policy against Arab protesters inside Israel in October, when 13 demonstrators were shot dead.

    Meanwhile, the supreme court is considering the release of another Jewish settler, Yoram Skolnik, who was convicted in 1993 of shooting dead a Palestinian who lay on the ground with his hands and legs bound.

    Israel’s former president, Ezer Weizman, granted Skolnik two reductions on his life term, and the parole board has recommended his early release for good behaviour.

    link to guardian.co.uk

  13. eljay says:
    October 13, 2010 at 6:27 pm

    I watched the video just now, and here’ s what I saw:

    ————————————-
    A group of young, stone wielding boys ambushes an on-coming car.

    The driver, who is not driving very fast, briefly swerves towards the kids – to scare them, perhaps? – and hits two of them, but appears to injure neither…at least not in any immediately apparent way.

    He stops briefly and – it’s quite possible, there’s enough time for it – he see that one kid has run off and the other is starting to get back up off the ground.

    So, given that the kids appear to be alright, and given the hostility around him, he drives off, only to have his back window smashed by another rock-thrower.
    ————————————-

    I have to say that, much like the article about the Palestinian snipers who shot those settlers, I don’t get the point. These kids were standing around with rocks in their hands, ready to swarm on-coming vehicles, and they ran AT the car.

    I would feel anger and outrage if the kids had been standing on the sidewalk, yelling at the driver, and he veered onto the sidewalk to strike them. But that’s not what happened.

    Just my 2¢…

  14. talknic says:
    October 15, 2010 at 1:35 am

    eljay

    link to wp.me

    They were running on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD, to the driver’s left. From the start of that section of video till the time of impact is 02:02 seconds. The first rock we see thrown is at 00:00:10:08 by the kid as he is being hit. The second rock is thrown from the driver’s left, slightly behind the car at 00:0010:14 it shatters the rear window.

    By David Be’eri’s account, he’d stopped to reverse because he had been attacked, the car behind prevented him from reversing. We do not see this alleged ‘attacked’ on the video

    “The driver, who is not driving very fast”

    02:02 seconds to the point of impact .. about 20 mtrs.
    04:06 seconds until he stops.
    In that time he traveled approximately 80 mtrs
    Try counting 4 seconds.

    ” briefly swerves towards the kids – to scare them, perhaps?”

    I do believe you’ll say ANYTHING!!

    At 00:00:08:12 …. the car is already veering to the driver’s left, across to the wrong side of the road. The driver has a clear passage had he taken the path on the correct side of the road