Activism

After brutal police beating, Palestinian-American Tarek Abu Khdeir, 15, sentenced to home arrest without charge

Tarek Abu Khdeir speaks moments after his release about his beating and arrest.

Just before noon Tarek Abu Khdeir, the 15-year-old American-Palestinian who was brutally beaten by Israeli police last Thursday, walked into court wearing the same clothes he had on when arrested. After a brief closed deliberation, with media corralling in the narrow hallway of the Jerusalem District Court, he was released after the payment of $880 (3,000 NIS) and under the condition of spending nine days under house arrest, despite not being charged with any crime. During arraignment, prosecutors for the police originally requested Abu Khdeir remain in the country for 15 days– an additional six days past his scheduled flight out– during which time an investigation against him will continue. Police have sealed the details of the on-going inquiry.

The youth will be remanded to a relative’s house in nearby Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem, as the judge issued a stay away order against his uncle’s home where he was apprehended.  Indeed it is a family vacation gone terribly awry, leaving the high schooler at risk of detention in a foreign prison, and his parents mystified.

“They are holding him under investigation to try to pin something on him and I’m not happy with that,” said the youth’s mother, Suha Abu Khdeir outside of the Jerusalem District Court. If police decide to charge Abu Khdeir, he will not be allowed to exit Israel on July 16th as planned. “Why should he have to stay here,” she continued, “my son almost died from that beating.”

Police assert Abu Khdier was detained because he threw rocks during a demonstration. However his family rejects the claim, maintaining he was picked up at random in a sweep during a demonstration near their home. There is a video of the arrests that a neighbor filmed, which picks up with Abu Khdeir already lying on the pavement, with police striking his body until he lost consciousness.

Tarek Abu Khdeir following his injuries. (Photo provided and published with consent from the Abu Khdeir family)
Tarek Abu Khdeir following his injuries. (Photo provided and published with consent from the Abu Khdeir family)

“He’s very badly injured. He’s not recognizable,” said Suha Abu Khdeir.  “I burst out into tears for the first time seeing him. They haven’t let me see him in three days. This is my first time seeing him. He doesn’t look like himself. He was crying as well,” she continued.

Tarek Abu Khdeir is only 15, and an American citizen of Palestinian background. He is not a resident of Jerusalem, where he was beaten and arrested days ago by Israeli police, yet his detention last Thursday has thrust him to the center of the on-going struggles in Shuafat. It is the neighborhood of his family, one of the largest in the middle-class East Jerusalem area, and the focal point of near continuous clashes that have spread across the city since a Palestinian youth– in fact Tarek’s first cousin Mohammed Abu Khdeir– was abducted and burned alive days ago.

Since Monday, clashes have taken hold of Shuafat and nearly every Palestinian hamlet in East Jerusalem following the abduction of Mohamed Abu Khdeir, 16. The teen was abducted on Tuesday and burned to death in an apparent revenge killing after the bodies of three Israeli youths were found in the West Bank outside of Hebron the day before. Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Nafatli Fraenkel were forced into a car in the Gush Etzion settlement block three weeks ago, setting into motion a series of anti-Arab retaliation attacks. Aside from Tarek and Mohammed, there was also an attempted kidnapping in Shuafat days ago; Mousa Zalum, 10, just managed to escape.

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It seems the Israeli government has chosen yet another liar, to become their ambassador here. As usual with a straight face, Ron Dermer, justified the brutal attack on young Tarek, by accusing him of being one of six kids who threw molotav cocktails and other stuff, at the Israeli troops. Lets pretend this is true, it still does not justify why a handcuffed young kid, who was not violent at that time, was so brutally attacked, kicked in head, and violently handled. Martha Radaatz let that go, and did not question him about that. Typical deflect Dermer style, blame the victim.
He did make small noises about Israel not using excessive violence, which was laughable. Dermer has the talent to lie with such an injured face, it is fascinating to watch this liar in action.

And today the police have announced that the Shelly Dadon murder was a hate crime. But I’m sure there’s no connection to recent events.

I wonder what Jen Psaki will have to say tomorrow about the brutal beating of an American by Ruritanian police, with their reputation for bigotry.

Well, Israel got more than it can handle this time. Not releasing Mohammed’s body pending something something something. Beating to unconsciousness, arresting, detaining, and fining (for ZERO reason since he has not been charged…oh wait, I forgot, 99.7% conviction rate, so they already know he’ll have to pay a fine… ) his US Citizen, lightly-accented, cousin Tariq who has a non-accented mother doing interviews in major media acting like any normal outraged US Citizen would act (jail the mofos [my word] who did this). And they shoot CNN’s Ben Wedeman in the head with a “rubber” bullet (for the second time, first in 2000) just to punctuate and amplify the story.

This is an “everyman” story and it’s going to linger. I’ll reiterate what piotr said the other day, the Abu Khdeir [Khdair] family has saved a lot of lives. Certainly in the short term, but maybe/hopefully/God willing they have changed the dynamic for good (in all senses of that phrase) by exposing Israeli BS in excruciatingly painful, real-time, side-by-side, inescapable contrast between the image and reality of Israeli oppression.

Finally, this has got to hit Obama and Susan Rice pretty hard because if their “wrong skin color” kids had been in Tariq’s place they would have ended up looking like Tariq as well. It’s just what Israel does.

Two corrections: the 3,000 shekels are bail, not a fine. I assume this money will be returned to him at the end of his house arrest. Second, his house arrest isn’t a “sentence” – he was remanded to house arrest, which is something that happens to suspects who haven’t been convicted all the time, including in the United States.

Having said that, I think he should have been released without conditions and all charges dropped. Hopefully, the policemen who brutally beat him will be punished. I also think Netanyahu should pull a King Hussein and offer to visit the Abu Khdeir family to demonstrate his opposition to racist attacks. If the family says no, which they probably would, he should respect their wishes. If they say yes, he should go, or at least invite them to his own residence if his presence in Shuafat would do more harm than good.