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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it

Occupation magazine - Related Issues Home page  back Print  Send To friend The sentencing of Zada`s attackers exacerbates the distrust between the state and its Arab citizens Jack Khoury Facebook 29.11.13 https://www.facebook.com/notes/sol-salbe/the-sentencing-of-zadas-attackers-exacerbates-the-distrust-between-the-state-and/10151813929656662 Even the judges realised they were dealing with a larger issue than that discussed within the District Court`s walls; those who longed to rebuild trust after what happened in October 2000 were in for a disappointment. Another chapter in the history of the relationship between the Arab community in Israel and the state concluded today (Thursday) in the Haifa district court. It ended eight years of a long and tedious legal process. An Arab who kills a Jew is sent to prison, while a Jew kills an Arab is honoured with a citation. This is the formula devised today and the prevailing feeling among the defendants, their families and all the protesters who came to support them in the court`s plaza. Lawyers for the defendants, an overwhelmingly young team from Shafa`amr worked day and night for years on one of the longest cases with which Haifa court has ever dealt, were the only ones who tried to explain that from a legal standpoint the decision handed down was good. One needs to emphasise the `legal` bit:`I personally prepared my client psychologically for a five years term, that was what was expected`, said one of the lawyers immediately after sentencing. `Therefore, with a sentence of two years offset by one-third off for good behaviour, and further reduced by the prior period in detention, this is a relatively light sentence.` But he too, also understood that this is not merely a legal issue, but a far more complex and complicated question. Even the judges themselves did not seem comfortable today with the sentence; the presiding judge, Vice President Ilan Schiff, understood the complexity of the matter: `Indeed we found the task set upon us difficult,` he wrote in his sentencing summary. Perhaps he would have preferred the case to be end in a plea bargain and an agreed punishment. But even the light punishment handed down by the judges, would ultimately whittle away what has remained of the sense of confidence that the Arab community has had in the courts. This was expressed almost immediately in the Court`s Plaza as soon as the sentence was handed down: Hundreds of people condemned the police and the verdict, exclaimed about injustice and voiced their anger at what they claimed was placing the victim on trial. Thus, they expressed their anger and distrust - the same kind of distrust and the abyss that opened up in October 2000 between the state and its Arab citizens. 13 young [Palestinian] Arabs citizens of Israel were shot to death by police and not among the latter has even been put on trial. Today, 13 years later, five Arab citizens are sent to jail for killing a man who opened fire on a bus with the express intent of murdering Arabs. There are those who would disagree with the comparison and circumstances, but there is a need to examine the message that the state delivers on such occasions to the Arab community and to the young people within it, some of whom were children attending school 13 years ago. Today, these young people are the harbingers of another generation: a generation which of tired of the old politics and cliches about co - existence. It`s a generation that looks for genuine citizenship which preserves its national identity and is based on justice, equality and mutual respect. Today, they didn`t have to face rubber bullets or live ammunition. But you can see in those young people`s eyes the anger and disappointment with the sentence, the racist bills in the Knesset, the discrimination, inequality and marginalisation. You can see that even after 13 years it is the same disdain and it racism. Translated by Sol Salbe of the Middle East News Service, Melbourne, Australia. facebook.com/sol.salbe Links to the latest articles in this section Adam Keller in Berlin, Sept 5-8 Activists protest Tel Aviv arms exhibition: `Arms trade is death trade` In Memeoriam Beate Keller Zilversmidt, 1942-2021