Far-right turns against military


January 4, 2017
Sarah Benton

Articles from Al Jazeera, Ynet and NY Times (the most thorough)


The perpetually-fondled Elor Azaria  at court with his girlfriend to his right and his parents to his left. Photo by Flash90

Israel soldier Elor Azaria found guilty of manslaughter

Israeli military court convicts soldier who shot dead Palestinian Fatah al-Sharif as he was wounded and incapacitated.

Al Jazeera
January 04, 2017

A military court has found an Israeli soldier guilty of manslaughter over the killing of a wounded Palestinian last year.

The court convened at the defence ministry building in Tel Aviv on Wednesday to issue the verdict in the high-profile case that raised questions over rules of engagement towards perceived threats by Palestinians.

A judge read out the court’s decision for more than two hours before announcing the verdict. The soldier, 20-year-old Elor Azaria, could now face a maximum 20 years in prison.

The March 24 shooting of Fatah al-Sharif, 21, as he lay overpowered on the ground was filmed by activists from the Israeli B’Tselem human rights group.

The judges went through every shred of evidence the defence put through for Azaria, the 20-year-old who maintained throughout the trial that he is innocent as charged.

However what was said time and time again throughout the 2.5-hour judgment was that Azaria’s accounts didn’t add up.

Firstly he claimed that al-Sharif was lying there dead. Then he claimed that his victim was a threat, that he had a knife. But that knife was some considerable distance away. Then Azaria said al-Sharif may have been wearing a suicide vest and that’s why he responded the way he did. But this was 11 minutes after al-Sharif had been shot by other soldiers and was left disabled on the ground, bleeding. He was bleeding on the ground as the ambulance staff was attending to the Israeli soldier who had minor wounds.

The chairman of the panel said Azaria claimed to have a stress problem. That also was dismissed.

Al-Sharif and another Palestinian his age were shot as they allegedly lunged at an Israeli soldier guarding a checkpoint in Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

In the video, a combat medic, later identified as Azaria, raises and aims his rifle, then a shot is heard. The Palestinian’s head jolts, and he suddenly has what seems to be a fresh head wound.

Scuffles erupted outside the courtroom between supporters of the Israeli soldier and police officers before the verdict was announced.

Hundreds of demonstrators blocked a major Tel Aviv intersection near the courtroom and clashed with police. Journalists covering the demonstration said they were attacked by demonstrators.

Several people were arrested.

Victim’s family demands life sentence

The defendant has previously said he believed al-Sharif was wearing a bomb belt, but prosecutors cited “contradictions” in his testimony.

They said that an officer had earlier carefully turned over al-Sharif and his companion to check if they were wearing bomb belts.

At their home in Hebron, Sharif’s parents told Al Jazeera before the verdict that they would not accept anything other than a guilty verdict and a life sentence.

“He should be sentenced in this court like they do with Palestinians… life sentences, torture and then ending up dead lying in a refrigerator,” said Yusri al-Sharif, the victim’s father.

But according to a survey in August by the Israel Democracy Institute, 65 percent of the Jewish public supports Azaria and his claim of self-defence.

Elor Azaria maintained his innocence throughout the trial [AFP]
“Israel’s political leadership has also swayed with the majority,” Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons said.

“Avigdor Lieberman actively campaigned in support of Azaria and he has since been appointed defence minister by Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.”

Naftali Bennett, education minister and a member of Israel’s far-right Jewish Home party, said before the verdict that the soldier should be pardoned if found guilty.

“That is whipping up a lot of reactions,” Simmons said. “There is a split in the Israeli public opinion on how army should act in [attack] situations. In the majority are those who feel that ‘terrorists’ who attack Israeli soldiers are fair targets.”

Shortly after the shooting, the Palestinian leadership demanded the United Nations investigate what rights groups have called Israel’s “extrajudicial killings”.

There have been previous accusations that Israeli forces killed wounded Palestinian attackers who no longer posed a threat.

In a memorandum sent to the Israeli authorities in September 2016, human rights group Amnesty International highlighted at least 20 cases of apparently unlawful killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces. In at least 15 of these cases those killed were deliberately shot dead, despite posing no imminent threat to life.

Since October 2015, Israeli soldiers and settlers have been responsible for the killing of at least 244 Palestinians, including unarmed demonstrators, bystanders and alleged attackers in an upsurge in violence.

Thirty-six Israelis have also been killed in mostly stabbing and shooting incidents carried out by Palestinians.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies
* * * *

Andrew Simmons, Al Jazeera,  adds

The judges went through every shred of evidence the defence put through for Azaria, the 20-year-old who maintained throughout the trial that he is innocent as charged.

However what was said time and time again throughout the 2.5-hour judgment was that Azaria’s accounts didn’t add up.

Firstly he claimed that al-Sharif was lying there dead. Then he claimed that his victim was a threat, that he had a knife. But that knife was some considerable distance away. Then Azaria said al-Sharif may have been wearing a suicide vest and that’s why he responded the way he did. But this was 11 minutes after al-Sharif had been shot by other soldiers and was left disabled on the ground, bleeding. He was bleeding on the ground as the ambulance staff was attending to the Israeli soldier who had minor wounds.

The chairman of the panel said Azaria claimed to have a stress problem. That also was dismissed.



Azaria waits in court for the verdict, January 4th, 2017. Photo by Heidi Levine.

Sgt. Elor Azaria convicted of manslaughter after Hebron shooting
Judges reject defence’s claims the terrorist was already dead before Azaria shot him, determining ‘He opened fired in violation of orders, the terrorist did not pose any threat.’

By Yoav Zitun and Yonatan Baniyeh, Ynet
January 04, 2017

Sgt. Elor Azaria was convicted by unanimous decision of manslaughter on Wednesday morning after shooting dead a seriously wounded terrorist who carried out a stabbing attack just moments earlier in Hebron last year. Azaria will be sentenced in about a month and could face several years in prison.

“He opened fired in violation of orders, the terrorist did not pose any threat,” the three judges wrote.

The shooting was captured on camera by a resident of the city, causing a stir and major debate within the country—reaching the highest political and military echelons—about the conduct of the IDF and its commanders in the field.


Sgt. Azaria with his mother in court. Photo by Flash90

 

 

Azaria sat emotionless as the verdict was delivered.

One of Azaria’s relatives was thrown out of the courtroom while a second relative stormed out after the verdict was read out.

A young woman called the verdict a disgrace and screamed “the Israeli military is over!” before she was thrown out of the courtroom. Another woman screamed “disgusting leftists!” and stormed out.

Speaking outside the courtroom after the verdict had been announced, Defence Attorney Ilan Katz told reporters: “We respect the court and will learn from the decision. We will obviously appeal.”

Israeli journalist and former lawmaker Sharon Gal, who serves as a spokesman for the Azaria family, blamed the court of ignoring the evidence indicating the soldier was innocent.

“It was like the court was detached from the fact that this was the area of an attack. I felt that the court picked up the knife from the ground and stabbed it in the back of all the soldiers,” he told reporters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB5EWNF71ug

Azaria shoots the terrorist dead

Military prosecutor Lt. Col. Nadav Weissman said, “The judges decided that it was an unjustified shooting. This is not a happy day for us. We would have preferred that this didn’t happen. But the deed was done, and the offense was severe.”

The prosecutor said the verdict was “important, clear, decisive and speaks for itself.”

‘No justification for the shooting’

Before announcing the final verdict, Central Command Chief Justice Col. Maya Heller systematically rejected all of Azaria’s defence arguments for over two-and-a-half-hours.

Judge Heller emphasized that “the verdict is based solely on the evidence brought forth (in the trial)” amid repeated claims from Azaria’s supporters that senior IDF leadership, politicians, the media and even public opinion could influence the ruling.

“There is no question that the defendant shot from close range after aiming his gun at the terrorist’s head and there is no dispute that by doing so he endangered the lives of those around him,” she stated.

She also sought to debunk what she described as conflicting claims made by the defence teams. “The defendant tried to hold the rope at both ends—on the one hand he claimed the terrorist moved and on the other that he was already dead before he (Azaria) shot him,” she noted.

“There was no justification for the shooting. The fact that there was a terrorist on the ground who sought to take the lives of soldiers did not justify disproportionate action,” she insisted. “Azaria’s shooting was inconsistent with the rules of opening fire.”

Addressing Azaria’s state of mind before and after the shooting, Judge Heller said that “there is no dispute regarding the veracity of the statements made by the soldier T.M. who testified to the IDF Criminal Investigation Division (CID) that Elor told him during the incident ‘How is it that my friend was stabbed and the terrorist is alive.’

“There is no cause to suspect Cpl. T.M. tried to falsely accuse the defendant, they are friends. The defendant did not bring up with T.M. the explosive (he thought the terrorist had) and the knife (that was on the ground by the terrorist’s body) as a reason for the shooting. His words to T.M. show there was another reason for shooting the terrorist.”

They stabbed my friend and tried to kill him—he deserves to die.

Judge Heller pointed out that “it appears that during his CID interrogation, the defendant was aware of the things Cpl. T.M. presented. It is not for no reason that he denied having that conversation with T.M. at the beginning of his interrogation. When he was offered to confront T.M., the defendant set conditions for the confrontation. Despite what he said during his testimony, he repeated the claim that he didn’t recall any conversation with T.M. before and after the shooting except for asking him to look after his helmet.”

“When he was asked to address the claim that the motive for the shooting was revenge he instantly chose not to respond. We saw fit to dismiss his explanation and we have decided that after the shooting, he said in Cpl. T.M’s ear, ‘they stabbed my friend and tried to kill him—he deserves to die.’”

In her analysis, Judge Heller determined that “this statement has significant weight in the decision.”

Turning to what she deemed conspicuous discrepancies in the version of events presented by the defendant and the testimony provided by Company Commander Maj. Tom Na’aman, Heller said: “We gave full weight to the version of the Company Commander against the problematic version by Azaria. The defendant changed his version and testimony, including about the conversation he had with the Battalion Commander Lt. Col. David Shapira, whose testimony is credible in our opinion.”

Azaria’s parents, Charlie and Oshra, left their home in Ramla in the early morning and arrived at the court in the Kiryah (IDF headquarters) in Tel Aviv for the verdict, greeted by hundreds of people who had turned up to stand in solidarity with the IDF sergeant.

Among those in the crowds of around 150 people—which had grown to 400 by 11am—were activists from the far right-wing Lahava group, Beitar Jerusalem soccer fans and members of the criminal, soccer fan group La Familia, some of whom began rioting as the tension mounted.

As Azaria entered the courtroom, those nearby clapped their hands, while calling out expressions of support: “We love you and God loves you,” they shouted.

Azaria’s mother, Oshra, burst into tears following the court’s decision: “This was a foregone conclusion,” she yelled as she turned to one of the prosecutors in the case. “You continue to smile. One day you will also have a child.”

Elor hugged his crying mother as they left the room together through the back entrance.

Azaria has spent the nine months of the trial under open detention at his brigade’s base near Rosh HaAyin, where he has been doing maintenance work.

If convicted, the Military Advocate General’s Office has considered asking the court to send Azaria to prison immediately without waiting for the sentencing.

Itay Blumenthal, Gilad Morag, Asaf Zagrizak, Attila Somfalvi, Amit Cotler and AP contributed to this report.



The crowd outside included activists from the far right-wing Lahava group, Beitar Jerusalem soccer fans and members of the criminal, soccer fan group La Familia.  Photo January 4, 2017 by Flash90

JERUSALEM — A military court on Wednesday convicted an Israeli soldier of manslaughter for shooting a Palestinian assailant in the head as he lay wounded on the ground, laying down a decisive marker in a case that has polarized Israelis and rocked the pedestal on which the military normally stands.

With the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank approaching, the highly charged trial fueled a debate about military ethics and the place of the army in Israeli society. It became as much about the military’s value system as the conduct of the soldier, Sgt. Elor Azaria.

The military’s rules make clear that assailants must be quickly incapacitated, but that once neutralized, they should not be killed. But critics and rights groups have accused Israeli soldiers and police officers of being quick to pull the trigger, particularly in response to a recent spate of deadly stabbings, shootings and car attacks by Palestinians.

Many in Israel, a country where military service is a part of national identity, called for backing up young soldiers sent on dangerous missions. They said that Sergeant Azaria had been in an impossible situation and that the deck had been stacked against him, since an acquittal would have put his commanders in a bad light.


Supporters of Sergeant Azaria outside the military court in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. Photo by Amir Cohen/Reuters

Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, also expressed reservations about the case.

“This is a tough verdict,” he said, “and the first thing I ask of all of us — those who like the verdict and those like me who like it less — we are all obligated to respect the court’s decision. We are obligated to maintain restraint.”

Before his appointment as defense minister in May, Mr. Lieberman, then a member of the opposition in Parliament, had attended the military court to support Sergeant Azaria and called the legal proceedings a “theater of the absurd.”

But after the verdict on Wednesday, he said, “We must keep the army above and beyond all political argument.”

Lt. Col. Nadav Weissman, a military prosecutor, said, “This is not a happy day for us. We would have preferred that this didn’t happen. But the deed was done, and the offense was severe.”

One of the lawyers representing Sergeant Azaria, Ilan Katz, said, “I have not doubt that in light of decisions that seemed to us not in line with the evidence presented, we will appeal.”

In a measure of the tensions surrounding the trial, which was mostly held in a small military court in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, the verdict was handed down in a special court inside the walled and heavily guarded compound of the military’s headquarters in the center of Tel Aviv to keep demonstrators at bay.

Video footage showed Sergeant Azaria smiling as he entered the courtroom to applause, and he was embraced by his family and friends. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the compound, shouting slogans like “free the boy,” and they could be heard inside the courtroom.

During a reading of the verdict that went on for more than two and a half hours, the military judge, Col. Maya Heller, systematically and resoundingly rejected all of the main points of the soldier’s defense and said that there had been “no justification” for the shooting, according to reports from inside the courtroom. He is expected to be sentenced in about a month.

Describing Sergeant Azaria’s telling of the event as “twisting” and “evolving,” the judge said the defense had tried to “hold the rope at both ends” by asserting on the one hand that the victim, Abed al-Fatah al-Sharif, appeared to pose a danger because he was still moving, and on the other, bringing medical witnesses who asserted that he was already dead by the time Sergeant Azaria shot him in the head.

The judge seemed to give great weight to statements Sergeant Azaria made at the scene, indicating he had acted not out of fear but for revenge.

A soldier testified that before the shooting, Sergeant Azaria had said, “How is it that my friend was stabbed and the terrorist is still alive?” After the shooting, a commander who was at the scene recalled Sergeant Azaria saying, “The terrorist deserved to die.”

The military’s high command immediately denounced the shooting in the West Bank city of Hebron in March, which was caught on video, calling it a grave breach of proper military conduct. But Israeli society was divided, and many hailed the soldier as a hero. A conscript serving as an army medic, Sergeant Azaria was 19 at the time.

Some right-wing politicians and celebrities asserted that the soldier’s fate had been prejudged in the hours after the event. Against the background of continued Palestinian attacks against Israelis, the soldier’s family and supporters mobilized widespread sympathy for his cause.

While the defense minister at the time, Moshe Yaalon, strongly backed the military high command, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wavered, first condemning Sergeant Azaria’s actions and then phoning the soldier’s family to reassure them that he would be treated fairly. “As the father of a soldier, I understand your distress,” he told them.

Local television stations frequently showed images of Sergeant Azaria’s distraught parents hugging him in court. Appealing to public sentiment in a country blighted by wars and terrorism, and where most Jewish 18-year-olds are conscripted for up to 32 months of military service, his supporters portrayed him as “everybody’s child.”

In remarks recorded before the verdict, the military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, tried to puncture that narrative. “An 18-year-old in the Israeli Army is not ‘everybody’s child,’ ” he said. “He is a fighter, a soldier who must dedicate his life to carry out the tasks we give him. We cannot be confused about this.”

The episode began when two Palestinian men stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint in Hebron. Israeli soldiers shot the Palestinians, killing one and wounding the other, Mr. Sharif, 21.

Sergeant Azaria arrived at the scene about six minutes later, by which time calm appeared to have been restored. Eleven minutes after the initial stabbing and shootings, the video showed, he cocked his rifle and shot Mr. Sharif as he lay on the road. Blood poured from Mr. Sharif’s head.

Lawyers representing Sergeant Azaria said he had acted to save his comrades, in the belief that Mr. Sharif, who was still moving, posed a threat and might have been concealing an explosive belt under his jacket.

But Sergeant Azaria did not warn the other soldiers or the medical staff nearby to move away from Mr. Sharif before shooting. Had Mr. Sharif been carrying explosives, critics said, the bullet could have detonated them.

During the trial, Sergeant Azaria’s company commander, Maj. Tom Naaman, said he “did not feel any danger” from Mr. Sharif.

“No one brought to my attention that the terrorist endangered anything,” he said, undercutting the defendant’s claims.

Miri Regev, the Israeli culture minister, who is from Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party, said she would call for the soldier to be pardoned.

“A soldier has been abandoned,” she said in remarks to an Israeli television reporter. “The chief of staff has disappointed many.”

Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli Parliament, said in a Twitter post that dozens of soldiers and commanders who have killed Palestinians should have been convicted. “Fifty years of occupation add up to much more than one Azaria,” Mr. Tibi wrote.

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