Many atrocities committed by Israeli forces scar the mind– just in the last year Mohammad al-Tamimi’s death, and Shireen Abu Akleh— but one case we will never forget was the killing of Eyad al-Hallaq in occupied Jerusalem in 2020, days after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.
Eyad was an autistic man of 32, and walking to his school for special needs that morning, with his teacher. They passed through the checkpoint at Lion’s Gate into the Old City when Eyad felt for his cellphone and Israeli police officers began barking demands at him. Eyad was terrified and ran. His teacher cried out in Hebrew that Eyad had a disability.
Still, the police chased him down an alley into a garbage lot and shot him once and then opened fire on him with an American automatic rifle as he cowered behind a dumpster.
The “flower” of his beloved family in Wadi el-Joz, Eyad died in that alleyway.
And this week, the anonymous police officer who killed Eyad was acquitted of his killing. The judge said it was an “honest mistake.” Even as Eyad’s heartbroken parents pleaded for justice.
Yumna Patel covered the case for us thoroughly. CNN also wrote up the acquittal. So did Al Jazeera and did Middle East Eye. Even the New York Times was shocked by the acquittal. And there are demands from the Palestinian community for the case to be investigated by the Hague as a war crime.
But the State Department issued no statement on the killing and acquittal. And none of the liberal Zionist groups that always bewail attacks by Palestinians on Israeli civilians issued a statement either. They have bigger concerns, no doubt.
And yet Eyad’s killing, as much as any other death, demonstrates the bankruptcy of Zionism. Seventy-five years after the Jewish state was established, Palestinians are a lesser class to Jews everywhere in the land — segregated, walled-in, denied freedom of movement, and subject to brutal violence by trigger-happy soldiers.
The judge excused Eyad’s killing because the officer was surely afraid. And why was the officer afraid of a disabled Palestinian?
Because Israel has not ever found a way to treat Palestinians fairly. Despite 75 years of supposed democracy, it has never extended rights to Palestinians. And Palestinians resent their persecution, as any people would, and some resist. And Israel responds with horrific force, as it did in Jenin last week, and the world sees that it has no answer but force…
So twitchy soldiers called on to enforce apartheid with their American rifles look at any Palestinian as a threat. Even a 32-year-old autistic man, the flower of his family, walking with his teacher to his special needs school.
So an acquittal that would bring demonstrations were it to happen in the United States goes unremarked among Israel’s American friends. No, they are busy punishing the boycott movement and celebrating the anti-Palestinian Abraham Accords.
The killing and the acquittal must be ignored. For they undermine the entire concept– of democracy for Jews only.
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Phil Weiss
