Aus der heutigen Haaretz zuerst ein Artikel von
Gideon Levy zur im Land auftrumpfenden Mob-Mentalität (während Israel gleichzeitig
neue «Evakuierungen» anordnet, wie die IDF und die meisten westlichen Medien diese
Todesmärsche bezeichnen). Anschliessend das Redaktionseditorial zum «kriminellen»
Terror in den arabischen Städten Israels – die Berichte zu diesem Aspekt
erinnern gebieterisch an die Lebensbedingungen in zentralamerikanischen
Unterklassenzonen.
The Reaction to a Gazan Doctor's Release Reveals the Troubling State of Israeli Society
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Doctor Mohammad Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, in Novermber 2023.Credit: AFP |
He was abducted by Israel in the same way that Hamas abducted the Israeli hostages, and was thrown in jail. Like the Israeli hostages, his family knew nothing of his fate, and neither Red Cross representatives nor his lawyer were permitted to visit him.
Released with him on Monday was surgeon Dr. Issam Abu Ajwa, who recounted horrific abuse he underwent. His picture before and after left no doubt about the veracity of his claims.
- NYT: Israeli Army leaders want cease-fire in Gaza, even with Hamas in power
- Israel says it's turning Sde Teiman into short-term holding facility with fewer prisoners
- Israel reduces food for Palestinian security prisoners, conceals data, sources say
The other 50 released Palestinian abductees were not shown in the Israeli media, of course, but audiences abroad saw adults who have become broken shells: gaunt, timid, of bony body and spindly legs, injured and bruised and full of wounds.
Abu Salmiya, fortunately for him, was not thrown into Sde Teiman, and therefore was not tortured to death like his two colleagues, Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, a renowned Gazan surgeon, and Dr. Iyad Rantisi, who ran a women's hospital, part of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya.
For Israelis agitated at his release – Israel was wrong not to kill him too, by beating, starvation, disease, or other forms of torture. Israel wants to see doctors, like everyone else in Gaza, die an agonizing death.
The image of Abu Salmiya released from jail, hugging his mother and crying, should have had an emotional effect on any human being: an innocent hostage walks free. In Israel, however, it marked the beginning of a hysterical campaign of panic, incrimination, hatred, dehumanization, lust for vengeance, thirst for blood.
Not just right-wingers – everybody, everybody, politicians, broadcasters, pundits and loudmouths in a choir singing in unison: His release became a failure that equals October 7. How did it happen, that Israel released an innocent doctor from Gaza, who gave the order and who's to blame? Israel 2024.
Now for the facts. Dr. Abu Salmiya was abducted in November from a UN convoy that was evacuating wounded Palestinians from the besieged and bombed-out hospital. Israel claimed the hospital served as a Hamas center of command, but an investigative report by The Washington Post revealed that Israel presented no evidence to support this. In any case we may assume that Abu Salmiya knew of Hamas activity in the hospital, but did not take part in it. If he had, he would not have been released.
Abu Salmiya was held by Israel on the strength of a dubious law it passed, the illegal combatants law, which allows the detention of a person without a judge's review for 75 days – an even more draconian law than the one permitting administrative detention. Israel, and in particular its judicial and health establishments, cares nothing about this. A hospital director is in jail – he is, after all, Gazan, that is to say: a terrorist.
That's what he was called in the festival of fury over his release. Everywhere, including on the new ultranationalist channel, i24News, which already makes one miss the mire of Channel 14, he was called a terrorist and people were calling on the military to rearrest him. Among politicians, too, a wall-to-wall consensus prevailed, which proves again there's no opposition in Israel to Arab-hatred and the lust for vengeance.
Two "moderates" stood out: Gideon Sa'ar, who termed Abu Salmiya's release "insensitivity to Israeli public opinion, which remembers the terrorist infrastructure at Al-Shifa," thus presenting the abduction of a doctor to satisfy the lust of the masses as a new justification for war crimes; and Avigdor Lieberman, who in recent years became, in the eyes of centrists, a model of moderation and reason, who – in his usual understated, delicate, allusive manner – gives a master class in Holocaust trivialization. "We came to realize that the director of Al-Shifa is not a doctor, but rather a Dr. Mengele." So if Abu Salmiya is Mengele, what shall we call Lieberman?
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Ben-Gvir's Indifference Is a Death Sentence for Israeli Arabs
It's hard to grasp the apocalyptic situation in Arab towns, one that has only gotten worse in the shadow of the war in the Gaza Strip. Every community has a story that embodies the helplessness and the depth of the crisis. Organized crime rings have taken control of life in Arab towns and imposed a reign of terror on them.
- The women in Israel walking around with an X on their back
- Two people shot and killed within hours in Israel's Arab community
- Ben-Gvir and police are failing to stifle crime in Israel's Arab communities
For instance, in Jadeidi-Makr, criminal organizations are trying to take over the local government's contract for garbage collection. The truck drivers who initially took on the job of removing the trash suffered threats from these organizations, and were being shot at. "I fear for myself, because the criminals have no boundaries now," said Mayor Sohil Malaham. "If they don't come for you, they'll come for your brother" (Josh Breiner, Haaretz, July 1).
Like Malaham, to varying degrees almost every Arab in Israel fears for his life. Israel and its government must ask how the Arab community turned into a war zone in which the cycle of bloodshed is unending. This isn't Baghdad in disintegrating Iraq or Idlib in battered Syria. Israel's Arab community has never before experienced the kind of violence and the high murder rates it has in the last two years.
Even worse, the way these murders are committed is hair-raising. In June, Rabia Araidi – the son of Naim Araidi, Israel's former ambassador to Norway – was murdered and his dismembered body found in a northern town. This recalls the kind of murders committed by the Islamic State. Criminal organizations took responsibility for beheading him in a statement posted on social media.
Ben-Gvir is the primary culprit for this professional and moral failure. His promise of governability has turned out to be an empty one. In his obsession with counting how many pitas prisoners receive, he has left a vacuum that has been filled by organized crime.
But an accusing finger should also be pointed at the police, the prosecution, the courts, other government ministries and the Shin Bet. In June 2022, an agreement was reached on recommendations by the National Security Ministry (then the Public Security Ministry) for "protecting threatened people in the Arab community." Yet since then, nothing has been done.
Arabs are citizens of the state, and they have a right to feel safe in their communities and their homes. Government ministries and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have a responsibility to put an end to this dysfunction. Without an understanding of the crime problem and without thorough, persistent professional attention being paid to it, this is a death sentence for the Arab community.
