While the investigation is ongoing to find the culprits responsible for abducting, killing and burning a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem two days ago, police are not stating if the crime was “nationalistic” or “criminal,” which is code for whether the perpetrator is Israeli or Palestinian. According to the family of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 17, who was thrown into a vehicle Tuesday around 4:30 am and found dead and brutalized within an hour in a field in the western edge of Jerusalem, the police are looking at relatives. Yet all of Shuafat, the East Jerusalem neighborhood where Abu Khdeir is from, is sure settlers conducted a retaliation murder for the deaths of the three kidnapped Israeli youths Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel, and Eyal Yifrah.
“They want the family to get the boys for questioning,” said Walid Abu Khdeir, the deceased’s uncle. “We refused this. If you want them come and capture them,” he continued. Police also released false information that Mohammed was gay, leading Israeli media to pick up the story as a crime of passion from an imagined homophobic family member. (Richard Silverstein re-caps here.)
To Palestinians, the murder was clearly carried out by settlers because two days before Mohammed was abducted another Palestinian youth in Shuafat was almost kidnapped. Ten year-old Mousa Zalum managed to escape with rough bruising on his neck. His family called the police, but no one responded.
In the intervening days, groups of teen-aged Israelis roamed the streets of Jerusalem with the stated goal of “looking for Arabs.” They draped themselves in flags and marched through Jerusalem’s shopping district usually abuzz with some Palestinians, especially during the holiday season of Ramadan. They chanted “Death to Arabs!” and “a Jew has a soul, an Arab is a son of a bitch” (this slogan rhymes in Hebrew).
By the third night of “Death to Arabs!” marches the Israeli police were finally on patrol. They stopped the youths from entering parts of the city and kept them at bay from a group of anti-price tag Israeli mourners (Israelis grieving for the three kidnapped youth, but not grieving and calling for the death of Arabs).
The funeral for Mohammed was expected to take place on Thursday, but was delayed by the family who were pressing for a more thorough medical exam. The holdup came from Mohammed’s father who was dissatisfied with the autopsy that concluded today without leading Israeli officials to finger settlers as the murders. Mohammed’s father spent most of the morning at a Jerusalem hospital with the body, later with mourners at the mosque next to his home.
Three blocks away, clashes were on-going from the previous night. Central Shuafat was trashed from the hours of rocks versus sound grenades and bullets that has come to define confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinian youths. The light rail bus shelter was charred last night, the glass splattered along the tram line. There are checkpoints too, erected at every entrance into Shuafat allowing only residents, journalists and United Nations workers to enter.
After Friday noon prayers, Mohammed will be buried in a cemetery near his home in Shuafat. Police will continue to investigate the murder, but to his family—and all of Palestinian Jerusalem—their son was a victim of a gruesome hate-crime. The local Fatah council in Shuafat has called for a two-day strike.
Mohammed’s death also sparked a wave of protests in nearly every East Jerusalem neighborhood last night. The almost 24 hours of clashes were note-worthy because of not only their duration, but Israeli police used live-fire on the Jerusalem residents and Israeli citizens. The remainder of the eastern part of the city was also reeling from nearly 12 hours of continued clashes between hundreds of Palestinian youth and Israeli police that subsided after daybreak.
Looks like the police are saying to the family “convince us that it wasn’t an honor killing and we’ll consider the possibility that it might be a hate crime.”
Idiots.
It’s complete bs by the GoI. They have no empathy– only cruelty is running in their veins. They don’t even ‘see’ truth.
Enough.
According to the family of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 17…. the police are looking at relatives….“They want the family to get the boys for questioning,” said Walid Abu Khdeir, the deceased’s uncle. “We refused this. If you want them come and capture them,” he continued.
yeah, israel wants this to go away so they will probably harass the family hoping they will shut up. i can’t recall an israeli jew ever going to prison for killing a palestinian. they will never find the perpetrators. they just don’t imprison settlers for any length of time no matter what they do. a person would get more time in jail in the US for abusing a dog than he’d get in israel for killing a man. if the killer was jewish and the dead person was palestinian.
maybe i am wrong, but i doubt it. it goes unspoken but everyone knows.
It is unbelievable. How easily the monsters in the Israeli government, came to premature conclusions, and went berserk collectively punishing ALL Palestinians, terrorizing them, arresting them, killing them, and smashing their homes, and yet, they are grasping at straws, and trying to find excuses that might cast doubt, as to exactly who murdered this kid. There are eye witnesses, and apparently a video, showing the criminals who viciously did this, but what do you know, the Israelis are acting stupid and slow, and being so careful in this investigation.
As of today there are no videos, or any other evidence showing exactly who killed the 3 settlers kids, and the mystery deepens because all reports say Hamas, who usually claims they committed some crime, has steadfastly denied this. Something stinks in Tel Aviv, and I feel they have much to hide.
i havent even read the article yet, but i absolutely have to rant or i will explode.
I have so many questions, and, without answers, it is not hard to imagine the worst possible scenarios.
Unless i missed it, i have not seen that israel has given any evidence that a kidnapping took place or that those 3 bodies in the field even belonged to those missing boys. I know they wont do an autopsy b/c of relig reasons, but they could have done DNA matching. The bodies would not have been at all recognizable after being exposed to the heat, humidity, and insects for 18 days. With all the bombing, demolitions, detentions, loss of lives, loss of property, loss of income, loss of freedom and rights, night raids, riots, beatings, shootings, injuries, and death that this kidnapping precipitated, why doesn’t israel do a simple DNA match?
Those 2 missing hamas members- there’s no evidence that they ran away or are in hiding. It’s not impossible that they were picked up for some unrelated reason, the questioning got rough, they got killed, and the murders were pinned on them b/c they will never show up again.
What about that stolen car? Is there any evidence that the hamas guys stole that car or could it just as well have been stolen by the older yeshiva student b/c it belonged to some ‘arab loving peace punk’.
i just want to hear of some real evidence, like a simple DNA match, to ‘justify’ all that israel has done since june 12th. I don’t understand why people would simply accept the israeli version when everything that has happened in the west bank and gaza, to the people and their gov, entirely serves israel’s goals. When there is that much ‘cui bono’, it’s not too much to ask for a little evidence like a DNA match.
And i also want to know why all the focus is on the 16 yr old as a revenge killing, but little mention of the 2 arabs who were found hanging from trees before the 16 yr old was killed, and no mention at all that those 2 murders may also have been revenge killings. With israel ‘investigating’, all 3 may be found to be honor killings by savage muslime pedophile worshipers, and no one will ask for actual evidence. They just accept israel’s word.