Soccer Dad

A murder in Halhul

Biur Chametz is concerned that the Israeli government is going down the path it went down in 1995, in delegitimizing its opponents. The impetus for his concern is what has now turned out to be a false story about Finance Minister Netanyahu being attacked at a wedding. He was heckled, for sure. But he was not attacked. (No matter what the Jerusalem Post says in its editorial.)
The passing of Adir Zik last week brought this question to mind again:

Who instructed Avishai Raviv to take credit (in the name of his "Jewish" organization Eyal) for the murder of an Arab in Halhoul (which was later found to have been perpetrated by an Arab)?

I've previously posted on this topic. Thanks to Biur, you can follow a link to articles about Avishai Raviv's involvement in besmirching the Right in Israel. To my mind reaction of the Labor government the murder of an Arab, Salman Zamareh (or Azamareh) on Sept 7, 1995 should have been a great scandal. But like everything else having to do Avishai Raviv, it's been buried.
Zamareh was killed by several assailant wearing Israeli army uniforms. Shortly afterwards a caller claiming to be from the extreme Israeli organization Eyal took credit for the murder. The problem was that there was no organization Eyal, it was one man, Avishai Raviv, a GSS agent charged with keeping his eye on violent members of the Israeli Right.
That didn't stop government ministers, including some who almost certainly knew that Raviv was Eyal.

Benny Begin MK said that in their propaganda campaign against the Likud and the current prime minister, Labor and Meretz have made use of slogans that we now know were instigated by Avishai Raviv. Begin added that Yossi Sarid needs to do a little soul-searching of his own. When Arabs were murdered in Halhoul three years ago, the Eyal group, of which Raviv was the head, boasted that it was behind the deed. Sarid called for the expulsion of the entire population of Kiryat Arba. When it later turned out that the murders were committed by Palestinian neighbors of the victims, Sarid did not apologize, and declared: "I did not cast aspersions on upstanding people. In Kiryat Arba, there are no upstanding people." Begin summed it up on Wednesday night: Sarid was a member of the ministerial committee responsible for the Shin Bet; his response at the time was a blatantly cynical act.

That wasn't Caroline Glick but Uzi Benzamin of Ha'aretz. Another columnist from Ha'aretz, Reuven Pedatzur, quoted by The Jerusalem Report's Yossi Klein Halevy, noted that the GSS had been corrupted too:

Reuven Pedatzur, a columnist who specializes in security issues for the daily Ha'aretz, claims that three days after the Halhoul murder, senior Shin Bet officials briefed Rabin's cabinet about the incident. According to Pedatzur, the officials lied -- stating that signs pointed to right-wing Jewish involvement, and citing Eyal as a prime suspect. "The Shin Bet knew for certain that Eyal, which was run by the Shin Bet, didn't commit the murder," wrote Pedatzur in a Ha'aretz column last year. And, Pedatzur insists, the Shin Bet could have told the ministers the truth, that Eyal was not involved, without compromising agent Raviv. By deliberately exposing the right to left-wing political attack over this incident, he concludes, "the Shin Bet apparently crossed the line into dangerous involvement in the political arena."

(Thanks to Biur Chametz for the valuable link at which I found these articles.)
I realize that governments often take actions that go against the law. Usually the consequences, if any, are minor. But in this case, in 1995, the government's actions interfered in a murder investigation. In Israel, there are presumably criminal statutes governing such actions, yet no one has been called to account. No one cared much if the Right was smeared even if it involved a felony.
While searching for items about the murder in Halhoul I found this:

Sept. 8: Salman Azamareh is shot and killed by masked men near his home in Halhul. Radical settler groups, 'Eyal' and 'David's Sword' claim responsibility.

That's from a Palestinian website so it won't surprise you when I tell you that the arrest of the actual perpetrators isn't mentioned. But when American papers followed up on the murder it wasn't more than a paragraph or two from wire services. The murder though got reported by first line reporters about how it portended the rise of a violent Right. No newspaper I'm aware of spent anytime trying to correct the false impression the original story made.
It appears that the false charges are starting again. Hopefully the government will realize how terrible it is to slander a sector of its citizens. But if 1995 is any lesson the government won't learn and many innocents will be marginalized.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at February 15, 2005 3:09 AM