Haftom Zarhum was killed by a security guard who appears to have shot him only because Zarhum had dark skin and looked like an Arab, and by a small number of Jews who kicked him, beat him and hit him with a bench even though he was profusely bleeding and completely defenseless. And not one Jew who did this has been arrested.
Jews beat a defenseless man they mistook for a terrorist. They beat him only because a security guard shot the man because he had dark skin and looked like an Arab. There was nothing the man did to provoke the attack. Yet not one of these Jews was arrested for the crimes they committed.
Why?
Look at the coverage in the Israeli press. Killing the Eritrean man was a simple accident of war, th press claims, nothing more, nothing less.
But the actions of the security guard and the Jews who beat and kicked Haftom Zarhum were clear violations of international law and would be war crimes.
In other words, there is no defense for what happened.
At minimum, the security guard committed manslaughter and the Jews – including an IDF soldier – who beat and kicked the downed defenseless man committed murder.
If Israel wants to viewed as anything other than a poseur of a democratic state, if it wants to be something other than the racist image it has on college campuses worldwide (and on the streets and in the salons of Europe, Canada and many other places), it must arrest and strongly prosecute the men who committed these crimes.
And that prosecution must also include the men – Shmuel Eliyahu, Menachem Mazuz, other settler rabbis and Kahanists – who have for the past few weeks done little else but encourage this type of vigilante violence.
Israel has laws against incitement. Putting them to use is far too long overdue.
But likely none of this will happen because the dead man is nothing but a poor black African man, and "infiltrator," who fled the most brutal dictatorship in the world hoping for freedom and a chance at life. And in today's Israel, that's worse than being a rabid stray dog on the hardscrabble streets of south Tel Aviv.
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Here's a blurred, slowed down video of shooting of the unarmed and defenseless Eritrean man, Haftom Zarhum, by a security guard. The video has been blurred out and slowed down by Ynet. The un-blurred full speed video, which is on the Jerusalem Post's website, clearly shows the Eritrean posed no threat to anyone:
Here are two videos of the mob violence after the attack. Note Haftom Zarhum is completely defenseless and can't put up any resistance. But people beat him, kick him and drop a bench on him anyway – just the way rabbis like Shmuel Eliyahu and Menachem Mazuz said they should: