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Israel does prosecute anti-Palestinian Jewish terror, contrary to popular belief
One of the regular refrains of critics of Israel during the current war is that it fails to prosecute violence by Jews against Palestinians.
Putting aside on one hand that sometimes Israel has not caught suspects it should catch, on the other side, the five indictments already filed against Israeli security forces for abuse at Sde Teiman, 75 IDF criminal probes of soldiers relating to the war and over IDF 300 operational probes relating to the war – there are ongoing cases right now which are below the radar and are close to verdicts for Jewish terror against Palestinians, tell another story.
The Jerusalem Post has learned exclusively that the 2019 indictment against a full-bodied minor (his identity is under gag order) for the alleged killing of a Palestinian woman and mother, Aysha Rabi, in October 2018 could be close to a verdict in later 2024 or early 2025.
The minor was charged with manslaughter and Jewish terrorism against Palestinians in an indictment filed by the Central District Attorney’s Office of the State Prosecutor with the Lod District Court.Already at the time of the indictment, it was alleged that the minor had thrown the rock which killed Aysha Rabi, a mother of eight in her late 40s, as she was riding in a car driven by her husband near the Tapuah junction, and that his DNA had been found on the rock.
At the time of the indictment, the fact that the minor was accused not of murder but only of manslaughter and that the filing of the indictment was delayed by several weeks indicated that the path to a conviction might be difficult.
Honenu lawyer Adi Keidar told the Post at the time that even the DNA evidence could be attacked in court.
A spokesman for the right-wing legal aid group Honenu said that there was no other evidence connecting the minor to the incident, and that the DNA evidence was weak compared to standard DNA evidence, as it was found on a moving object – the rock – as opposed to on a stationary object, like a wall.
This meant, said Honenu, that the DNA could have come from a variety of sources, while the rock may have been moved.
In addition, the spokesman said the DNA was of a low resolution. In other words, while hi-resolution DNA evidence can flag a specific person, in this case the evidence could point to a number of people.
Finally, he said that “fresh” DNA evidence is the best kind, meaning it was recently found on the object. In this case, it was not fresh.
Honenu was also optimistic because the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court had said back at the start of the case, that the minor had provided an alibi after refusing to speak to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) for the past three weeks.
But the Post has learned that a lot has happened since then with the prosecutor’s office laying out its entire case in closed door hearings (due to the defendant being a minor at the time of indictment) over a multi-year period.
Defense’s case will wrap up relatively soon
In fact, recently the minor-defendant finished testifying as part of the defense’s case, and the defense’s case may wrap up relatively soon, which then leads to conclusion arguments from both sides and a verdict.
Such a verdict could lead to years of prison time for the defendant for the killing of Rabi, a Palestinian.
This would not be the only such case of Jewish terrorists facing justice for violence against Palestinians, with the 2014 murderer of Palestinian minor Muhammad Abu Khadir, Yoseph Chaim Ben David, and the 2015 murderer of the Palestinian Dawabsheh family, Amiram Ben Uliel, both sentenced to life in jail in recent years.
In fact, one of the reasons that the Rabi case probably took longer is that the Shin Bet declined to use enhanced interrogation on the minor-defendant, after the agency’s use of such techniques on Ben Uliel almost led to a mistrial.
Elor Ben Azariah, Ben Deri, and other IDF soldiers have also been given prison time for killing Palestinians.
Returning to the Rabi case, the Post understands that as part of the prosecutor’s case, extensive evidence has been presented to debunk the defense’s attack on the DNA evidence.
Further, the Post learned that the prosecution was able to use a May 2019 decision by the Lod District Court regarding various issues in the case as somewhat of a roadmap toward conviction.
Already in that decision, the court had ruled in the context of debates about how long to keep the minor in detention of some sort, that the prosecution’s chances of conviction were extremely high because of the DNA.
Despite the defense’s arguments, the prosecution has presented evidence that the chances of the minor-defendant just happening to have touched the rock randomly (versus using it as his killing weapon) are miniscule given that the only DNA on the rock is Rabi’s, her husband who touched the rock after it hit her, and the minor-defendant.
In May 2019, the court had called such a theory to try to acquit the defendant-minor “blatantly and grossly unreasonable.”
Moreover, the prosecution has taken aim at the defendant’s alibi.
According to the prosecution, the Post understands, the minor’s alibi is completely unreliable because he refused to open his mouth not only throughout the time of his arrest and being interrogated by the Shin Bet from December 30, 2018, but even from October 15, 2018 when he was interviewed only as a third party witness, and not yet as a suspect.
The fact that the defendant would not open his mouth even when he was not yet suspected of anything, the prosecution has argued, draws much greater attention to his potential guilt and draws greater scrutiny to his alibi.
Put differently, when he was not worried about any criminal charges, what would he have to lose by telling law enforcement that he was in a different place from where he would have needed to be to perpetrate the crime?
Further, the Post has learned that the prosecution noted that the defendant only produced an alibi once he knew what the final narrative of the prosecution against him would be as the indictment was about to be filed.
The prosecution said that this showed that he was waiting to manufacture and tailor an alibi to the specific charges and had no true story to tell that stood on its own.
In addition, the prosecution argued that the defendant’s external evidence to prove his alibi was extremely flimsy, and that it would have seemed more crucial for him to produce hard evidentiary support for his alibi given that he had chosen the risky strategy (which implies guilt) of maintaining silence throughout his interrogation.
The Post has also learned that the drawing out of the trial for four years, , which could also lead to global criticism, has multiple causes.
The Palestinian Authority managed the carrying out of the autopsy and receiving those results took time. Both the prosecution and the defense then needed their own experts to examine the results.
Getting testimony from Rabi’s family members, who are Palestinians, was also complex and took time.
Also, the prosecution’s view is that the defense has contradicted nearly every fact presented, including that Rabi was killed at all, forcing the prosecution to present a large amount of preliminary evidence not even specifically related to the defendant’s alleged guilt.
In addition, because the Shin Bet was involved, there were longer fights over what investigative materials were classified for national security or could be provided to the defense.
There were also delays relating to debates over wiretapping and other classified eavesdropping evidence.
At times, the coronavirus crisis likely slowed things down, and the court itself did not especially prioritize the case to run on a weekly basis, sometimes with large amounts of time passing in between hearings.
Back in 2018-2019, the Shin Bet, in a statement, called the killing “full-fledged terrorism.”
The statement alleged that there were attempts to obstruct the investigation of the killing and to spread lies about the agency.
Moreover, the Shin Bet more broadly accused the indicted minor and some unspecified others, possibly including the other four minors originally arrested, of being affiliated with radical Jewish groups seeking to overthrow Israeli democracy and establish a new Jewish theocracy.