A Jewish killer is home. His Palestinian victim won’t even be buried in his home village

The mourning tent for Awda Hathaleen in Umm al-Kheir on 29 July 2025

The Haaretz lead editorial on 31 July 2025:

Under the pretext of the war in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians in the West Bank have been abandoned to their fate. On Monday, Israeli settler Yinon Levi allegedly shot and killed Awdah Hathaleen in the village of Umm al-Kheir south of Hebron. Levi and another settler were working with a small excavator in a nearby settlement, next to Umm al-Kheir. According to the Palestinian villagers, at one point the settlers started entering the residents’ privately owned land, and the residents tried to block them. After one of the Palestinians was injured by the digger, they began to throw rocks at it.

The incident was filmed in a number of videos, in which Levi fires his pistol and another settler strikes one of the Palestinians with the digger. The police arrested Levi and took him in for questioning, but the next day the court released him to house arrest.

The police, who charged Levi with reckless homicide and illegal use of a weapon, said that he felt his life was in danger; the police didn’t appeal the decision to release him. And why should they appeal? A Jew fired and a Palestinian was killed – what’s there to appeal?

Last year a number of countries – including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom – imposed sanctions on Levi (U.S. President Donald Trump later revoked them), in part because of his involvement in expelling Palestinians from the village of Zanuta – but who in the State of Israel cares?

The American statement said: “Levi consistently leads a group of settlers who attack Palestinians, set fire to their fields, destroy their property, and threaten them with further harm if they do not leave their homes.” But this didn’t prevent him from being treated as mentally unwell in Israel.

Not only is there no Jewish terrorism, there’s no apartheid either – and don’t let the facts confuse you. For example, Levi was arrested by the police, but the four Palestinians suspected of throwing rocks, maliciously causing damage to property and disturbing the public order were detained by the Israel Defense Forces, and only on Wednesday evening were they brought before a military court for a hearing, where their detention was extended for eight days. One territory and two parallel legal systems – but this is not apartheid.

Hathaleen died from the shooting and Levi is at home; this occurred under the auspices of the army, with the approval of the state, with the support of the judges, while they bowed down to the politicians of the Religious Zionism party. Levi has already received the public support of Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit), who described him as a “pioneer.” Maybe a job as the head of a regional council awaits him. Maybe it won’t even end there – after all, the National Security Ministry fits him like a glove.

In contrast, Hathaleen will not be laid to rest in his own village. The army forbade him from being buried there. As far as the military is concerned, he and Umm al-Kheir shouldn’t have been there, a historic mistake waiting to be corrected.

But the Israeli public isn’t interested in any of this. The criminal indifference of the public is the fertile soil on which the enterprise of Jewish superiority and apartheid grows and flourishes.

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