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Shin Bet Murders Palestinians Who Killed Three Israeli Youths
September 22, 2014 by Richard Silverstein 88 Comments
Marwan Qawasmeh's family memorializes him. (Maan)
Another chapter has closed on the horrible cycle of killings and revenge murders that plagued the West Bank in the weeks before Israel launched Operation Protective Edge. A joint team of IDF, Shin Bet and Border Police cornered the two Palestinian boys and murdered them. I use the deliberate term "murder" though you will never see any Israeli source admit this. Here is what I wrote about today's incident (two and a half months before it happened!):
There is one thing of which you may be certain: when and if they are found, they will be summarily executed. Of course, it won't be presented to the media that way. The IDF never puts a bullet in a Palestinian from point blank range. It's always: 'the terrorist fired at soldiers who returned fire and killed him;' or when told to surrender he fired a fusillade of bullets, which the IDF responded to, killing him.'
Here is the official statement announcing the murders:
[Israeli censorship] permits us to announce that after a joint intelligence operation of the Shabak, in collaboration with the IDF and Border Police, the hiding place of Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aysha, two residents of Hebron who carried out the kidnapping and murder of Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Sher, and Eyal Yifrah, was located. There was an attempt to detain the suspects as a result of which there was an exchange of fire in the course of which the suspects were hit.
Note the use of the euphemism "hit." They don't even want to acknowledge they were killed. My Israeli source called it a 'targeted killing.' He says the force intended to liquidate them. It hardly mattered whether they fought back or surrendered.
Hebron's Palestinian governor confirmed that the suspects were executed:
"It's clear now the two martyrs, al-Kawasme and Abu Aysha, were assassinated this morning during a military operation in the Hebron University area. We condemn this crime, this assassination, as deliberate and premeditated murder," he said.
Today's Haaretz further confirms this account. Note the firepower brought to bear:
The Shin Bet said that the two suspects, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha, were hiding in a house in the West Bank. Israeli forces approached the house with an excavator vehicle and fired a rocket at the house, according to Palestinian reports.
You fire a rocket into a house to kill those inside. You bring an excavator to bury the victims alive. If there was a firefight as claimed it was the equivalent of a peashooter against an F-16. This was an execution. The state equivalent of a mob hit.
Israel's foreign ministry hasn't gotten the Shin Bet's memo. The headline of its press release says the Palestinian suspects were "apprehended" and the body of the release says they were "hit" by Israeli fire. There is not even a mention of the fact that they were killed.
It should be noted the much higher level of 'civilization' evidenced by today's Shin Bet compared to the primitive values displayed in the 300 Line bus hijacking. After two Palestinian hijackers were captured alive, a Shin Bet agent took a rock and stove their heads in with it: cold-blooded murder. After the Shin Bet tried to blame the IDF for the murders, the IDF fought back and the truth was revealed. Even after the truth was known, the political echelon, including that august nonagenarian, Shimon Peres, rallied to the murderers and gave them a Good Housekeeping seal of approval. No one was ever charged or punished.
Now, things are so much cleaner. There are no photographers or reporters allowed on the scene of today's targeted killings as there was in the Line 300 incident. All the actors play their parts and have them rehearsed, including what to say in the aftermath. The blood is swept away. The crime vanishes, just like Hitchcock's "lady" in that vintage film. After the killings the trigger man goes out with his comrades and celebrates with a drink at the pub. A job well done.
Some near-sighted people may look at this as the closing of the circle on the developments that subsequently led to the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the Israeli pogroms in the West Bank, Hamas' revenge rocket salvos and Israel's response leading to the murder of 2,100 Gazans. This may be the end of a chapter. But the end of the book is nowhere in sight. Unlike Churchill who said it wasn't the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning–this isn't that. This is yet another bloody spiral which will continue ad nauseam, thanks to the impotence of the world community to end the violence and injustice. This is a horror movie that keeps producing more victims, allowing Freddy to continue his spree forever.
Filed Under: Mideast Peace Tagged With: border police, hebron, Israel Defense Forces, operation protective edge, shin-bet, targeted killing
itzik
just wondering to myself, why did you choose to put this header :
instead of this one :
"Shin Bet Killed Palestinians Who Murders Three Israeli Youths"
Please note that one of the murderers of the Line 300 prisoners was Ehud Yatom, later a Likud Knesset member.
Thanks for the coverage. It's a sad, sad day for the principle of justice. Criminals should have their day in court.
Targeted assassinations have become an act of terror in Israel's bid to suppress the will of the Palestinian people for independence. The USA has taken the same strategy to strike at AQ terror with little success in the past 13 years. Today president Obama took his act of violence one step further by bombing a sovereign nation contrary to International Law. Acting with impunity as part of the global community applauds and the GCC states joined the attack.
I don't fear terror as much as I fear the arrogance of such military might with no UN oversight. John Bolton would be proud.
"Border Police cornered the two Palestinian boys and murdered them."
'boys'?
gilad
A joint team of IDF, Shin Bet and Border Police cornered the two Palestinian boys and murdered them.
Boys? 29 and 33 years old, old boys.
Yes, 21 years old, a few years older than the Israeli boys they murdered.
○ IDF Intercepts Syrian Fighter Plane in the Golan Heights
The IDF successfully intercepted a Syrian Sukhoi Su-24 fighter/bomber aircraft using a Patriot missile … Syria confirmed the downing of the plane, calling it an "act of aggression". Syrian television quoted a military source, saying the interception happened "within the framework of Israel's support of ISIS' terrorists."
Israel protecting Jabhat al-Nusra fighters at Quneitra checkpoint for the new push towards Damascus in the southern front?
Other sources indicated it was a MIG-21 fighter jet.
@ izik: First, because the Shin Bet didn't "kill" them. It murdered them. Second, because you can't use the word "murder" twice in the same headline.
Aside from that, I was just wondering why you're so petty & act like a jerk. Can you explain that?
[comment deleted–your report is absolutely false and has been proven so by far more reliable ones that aren't linked directly to the security services as this one is.]
That number – which only includes self-reported information from about 750 law enforcement agencies – hovers around 400 "justifiable homicides" by police officers each year. The DOJ's Bureau of Justice Statistics also tracks "arrest-related deaths." But the department stopped releasing those numbers after 2009, because, like the FBI data, they were widely regarded as unreliable.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/08/how-many-police-shootings-a-year-no-one-knows/
Deïr Yassin
@ Richard
The photo illustrating your article is Amer Abu Aisha's widow and one of his sons.
Marwan Qawasmeh (29) and Amer Abu Aisha (32) are grown men hardened in Hebron through decades of oppression by the occupier and the Jewish settlers. Their rogue act was likely motivated out of personal/family revenge and exploited by Netanyahu for political or "national" interest. Israel acts with impunity.
○ Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisheh suspects in the kidnapping and murder
poirefrais
No 'due process' here. Clearly not unexpected, given a pattern of targeted assassinations and concealment.
Thank you, Richard.
E Good
Who's acting like a jerk around here??
Adam Dayton
Are you familiar with the concepts of neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism. Your attempting to portray extrajudicial killings as uncivilized perfectly fits the description. While it may be viewed as "uncivilized" by members of your white male-dominated culture, there are plenty of cultures that see things otherwise. You need only look to how things are done in the Arab world.
Please refrain from imposing your subjective values (in the absence of empirical evidence proving them other than subjective) onto other cultures.
Melissa Barnard
This was a serious comment, and deserved a better response than that. Like many other people who read your page, this person was clearly struck by the empathy that you show for Hamas murderers, combined withe unending criticism that you have for the Israeli defense forces who try to protect us from them.
In this case, I cretainly have no sorrow over the death of these murderers. Experience has shown that capturing them alive only leads to more excuses for Hamas kidnappings, and ultimately to these murderers going free. That is not justice.
You were quite clear as to why you used the term "murder" rather than "kill" with respect to the actions by Israel. In short, the term "kill" could not adequately capture what had actually occurred. If that is correct, then your argument regarding the linguistic convention of not using the word "murder" twice in a headline is irrelevant. Even if the aforementioned is a convention, it is a greater convention to not use inaccurate terminology, which according to your own standards you did by referring to what happened to the Israelis as an act of killing rather than an act of murder.
@oui
This wasn't a 'rogue act', necessarily. This was well planned, and financed by the brother of the West Bank mastermind, now incarerated. The brother had been banished to Gaza as part of some prisoner exchange deal. How the brother in Gaza got his hands on the $60,000 used to finance the kidnap operation is anyone's guess.
Even if the kidnap wasn't ordered by the Hamas hierarchy in Gaza, all the involved parties were Hamas. It's even possible that the kidnap was directed by Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas operative, who lives in exile in Turkey.
@poirefrais
No due process?
These men were armed and dangerous. They were ordered to surrender and a firefight ensued. How were they denied due process?
It is very unlikely that these kidnappers would have gotten off free if they had been put on trial. The question is whether we are dealing here with a mere example of Shin Bet brutality or whether it was acting on orders from outside its own circle? Is the establishment worried that a regular trial might have brought out things which it prefers to remain hidden because they go counter to its own propaganda (and the "information" of people such as Melissa)?
Sancta simplicitas. "Armed and dangerous" – oh well it is something else again than "auf der Flucht erschossen".
Meanwhile the drama for which these kidnappings provided a pretext is still continuing beyond its bloody phase. The Dutch activist and ex-parliamentarian Anja Meulenbelt, who has been visiting Gaza during this month, reports that the boycott goes on unabated. According to her Hamas has not managed to get any concessions out of the Israelis except for a (temporary?) widening of the sea area Gazans are allowed to fish in. All the declarations by European politicians and in a more muted form by some of their American counterparts that the boycott is unacceptable have apparently not changed one iota in the Israeli cabinet's attitude – and it is getting away with it, it is getting away with it as always.
Nesreen
The problem is that Israel was lying about these three jews, they weren't killed by Palestinians, actually, they were killed in a car accident, but the the Israeli had an agreement with their family to hid them for a while and make look like that they were kidnapped and killed by Palestinians, go over the internet, it's all a big lie so Israel can attack Gaza. We don't need your sympathy any way for those Palestinian, if you have any heart or a tiny of humanity, you wouldn't say that, go to Gaza and see the massacre the Zionists did over there!!!!!!
Why don't you look at this photo initially posted in the Reuters-link in Richard's article (first link, it has been updated, and a video embedded instead of the photos. I preferred the photos, they really showed that the house has simply been bombed).
http://blog.mondediplo.net/local/cache-vignettes/L450xH303/m02d201409235a9e-57a80.jpg
That was inside. And from the outside: http://blog.mondediplo.net/local/cache-vignettes/L450xH299/m02d20140923f475-3bcdc.jpg
Jafar Siddiqui
Itzik. You should be so squeamish about wording after we start seeing Israel do similar things to their own, nice Jewish "boys" who "hit" ("Murder…accidentaly of course!) Palestinians, the innocent children who are simply walking to school, the frustrated boys who throw rocks at tanks (as opposed to Orthodox Jews who throw rocks at Sabbath-breaking Jews).
Israeol has a brutal, murderous, genocidal approach to Christian and Muslims Palestinians, but a kid gloves, indulgent approach to it Jews.
Fred. By your line of argument, Israel and all of its Jews are responsible whenever an atrocity is committed because "all parties involved, were Israel". So, what are YOU suggesting? that every Israeli should be murdered for their part in the genocide of the Palestinians?
I am sure you have the usual partisan blinders on for this topic.
Fred. I have just one question for you…well, two.
Would Israeli Jews have been treated this way?
What would have been the reaction of Israelis had Jewish murder suspects been killed in this manner?
Remember, I said "suspects", no court of law er, justice, had found them guilty of anything.
@Jaffar
I haven't made any arguments, I've only stated facts.
I don't wish to argue with you.
○ Turkey-based Hamas member Salah al-Arouri is uniquely suited to overseeing the group's operations in the West Bank
"The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade is a separate armed military wing, which has its own leaders who do not take their orders [from Hamas] and do not tell us of their plans in advance."
Meshaal resides in Qatar (Muslim Brotherhood protectorate) and al-Aruri lives in exile in Turkey where he has free movement and participates openly in debates and meetings. Turkey with Erdogan is a MB bastion but also allows ISIL to recrute, promote and train fighters to cross the border into Syria. As an educated guess, if Salah al-Aruri was responsible for planning and funding the kidnapping of three Israeli teens, he would have done it as a rogue member of Hamas. His master most likely would be the IS leadership which operates with impunity in Turkey. Qatar has been accused of funding the Islamic State although IS is now self-sufficient. Important to note Hamas had just made a unity agreement with the Palestinian Authority before the kidnapping.
"Al-Arouri, a senior Hamas religious [?] figure, was in Qatar for the meeting held between exiled political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal, Palestinian Authority President Mahmou Abbas and the Qatari emir, Channel 2 reported."
I don't believe this – see photo of visit with emir of Qatar.
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