Life in the Old City of Jerusalem. Demotix/Mahmoud illean. All rights reserved.
Haftom Zarhum, a 29-year-old Eritrean, was lynched by Jewish
Israelis simply because he looked different. After being shot in the legs, a mob
circled him like
hyenas over bleeding prey throwing a bench over his head chanting the
unofficial Zionist’s anthem of hate: “Death to Arabs, Arabs out!” and “Am
Israel Hai”.
Disowning culpability and playing the traditional victim,
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nashon blamed the
incident on the “terrible situation we are in”.
At a similar scene, a week earlier, a video showed a despondent
Palestinian child lying in a pool of blood. A puzzled appearance engulfed the
child’s face as he gazed at a Jewish racist who was screaming “Die, you son
of a whore, die”.
Had Mr Zarhum been an innocent Palestinian bystander, it
would have been a different story. Of the approximately 50 Palestinians, who
were murdered by the Israeli army, police or Jewish vigilantes in the last three
weeks, at least 20 were allegedly threatening Israeli life.
Resisting occupation, by all means, is a right secured by
international conventions. Hence, there were instances when desperate
Palestinians, using basic home tools, confronted occupying Israeli soldiers or
armed Jewish settlers. But certainly, it wasn’t in all 20 cases.
It was definitely not in the case of the slain Jew that
Israeli soldiers suspected for a Palestinian. Emergency response organisation
chairman Yehuda Meshi-Zahav Zaka said, “At first
it appeared he was like all others. When I was asked to deal with the body, I
realised that he was a Jew, and that he was mistaken for a terrorist [Palestinian]”.
That is why Mr Zarhum’s life had no value. The murderers
rightly assumed their actions “like all others,” had no consequences. It was
proven more than 20 times in the preceding three weeks when Jewish killers
walked free as heroes.
Israel has two systems of justice. It demolishes homes and
revokes “Israeli” citizenship of Palestinians accused of violence. But Jewish
terrorists, arrested for burning alive a Palestinian child last year, are
celebrated as heroes and continue to own government subsidised homes in Jewish
colonies.
It was discovered that Mr Zarhum—who looked more African
than a typical Palestinian—was from Eritrea when someone found his
Israeli-issued visa and shouted “he’s Eritrean, he is not a terrorist
(Palestinian).” It was already too late to stop the hyenas’ insatiable thirst
for blood.
Life in Israel is either Jewish or goyim. It’s been established
that taking a non-Jewish life is inconsequential. Israel newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported in 2013 that
Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett boasted,
“I have killed lots of Arabs (Palestinians) in my life—and there is no
problem with that”.
As for immigrants, two years ago Israeli Culture Minister
Miri Regev called
Africans a “cancer in Israel’s body”. She was not alone.
Following a wave of anti-African demonstrations in Tel Aviv,
a poll conducted
by the Israel Democracy Institute in 2013 found that 52 percent of Jews agreed
with Regev that blacks living in Israel are “a cancer”.
As to excuse something like Zarhum’s murder, one third of
Israelis in that poll agreed,
“that unlawful, vigilante violence against non-Jewish African immigrants is
fine with them”. A whopping majority of Jewish Israelis, 83 percent, supported
anti-African protests.
Screaming at an injured Palestinian child soaked in blood, a
racist mob lynching Zarhum, or killing a Jew who was mistaken for a Palestinian
are further manifestations of Israel’s culture of hate. It was espoused by no
less than Israeli minister of culture, and supported by the majority of
Israelis.
Hate crimes against the African immigrant by a Jewish mob or
the Jew, who was thought to be a Palestinian, were not an exception. The only
exception is that they were not just numbers to be added to the more than 50
murdered Palestinians.
