Zion Square assault

Zion Square lynching


The attack site
Location Zion Square, Jerusalem
Date 16–17 August 2012
Non-fatal injuries
 3 Palestinian teenagers (1 seriously injured)
Perpetrators Mass assault by 10–15 Israeli teenagers

The Zion Square assault, also described by Israeli police,[1] the judge who passed sentence,[2] Israeli and foreign media as a 'lynch' or 'attempted lynch(ing)',[3][4][5][6][7] was an attack by Israeli youths against four Palestinian teenagers that took place on the night of 16–17 August 2012 at Zion Square in Jerusalem. The four were chased by 10–15 teenagers and a 17-year-old Palestinian boy Jamal Julani was beaten unconscious and subsequently found to be in a critical condition.[8][9][10][11]

Originally reported by police as a brawl between two groups, the incident achieved notoriety after an Israeli eyewitness posted an account on Facebook reporting that dozens of Israeli youths had tried to beat to death three Arab youths, and that, when one fell, they continued to kick his head. After the assailants fled, others in the vicinity stood about shouting angrily. When Israeli volunteers on the scene gave the boy assistance, their action was greeted by bystanders with expressions of resentment.[12] Julani had a heart condition and had to be revived by a responding medic. He was released from hospital a week after the attack.[13] In July 2013 he was still undergoing neurological and psychological care.[14] An eyewitness reported that police marked the site as a murder scene.[15]

Reports said that during the episode a policeman observed the assault without intervening. However, a police investigation determined that this referred to an earlier altercation nearby.[16] Prompt intervention by Magen David Adom, including C.P.R., managed to revive him. Authorities called his survival a miracle.[17] Police commissioner Yohanan Danino told the press, "The lynch in Jerusalem was the most severe and contemptible act imaginable in a democratic law-abiding country."[4]

On 19 August, Israeli police arrested several Israeli teenagers, the youngest of whom was 13 years old. One of the suspects expressed no regret. The attack took place on the same day as a firebombing of a Palestinian taxi in which a Palestinian family of 5 and their driver suffered serious burns.[5] The incidents were condemned in Israel and throughout the world[18] and a national debate over anti-Arabism ensued.

The attack

Zion Square at night

The attack took place on Thursday night 16 August 2012, in Jerusalem's busy pub and entertainment district[13] on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.[19] This year Israel had issued large numbers of entry permits to Palestinians to visit Jerusalem over the Muslim holy month.[1] According to interviews with the Palestinian victims, 17 year-old Jamal Julani, a matriculating student[5] from the predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud, together with his cousins Muhammad Mujahid, 17, and Nuaman Julani, and a fourth boy were attacked and chased by some 50 Israeli youths, shouting "Death to Arabs".

The harassment began in Kikar Hahatulot (Cats' Square), which is notorious for its late-night drunken brawls. Initial reports spoke of a group singing racist, anti-Arab songs when, according to police, a girl declared she had been molested sexually, or raped,[20] by an Arab, and this remark is said to have caused the boys' rampage,[6] which started by beating up an Arab who happened to be passing by.[20]

Suspects gave defense lawyers a number of different versions of the events.[21] According to the police indictment in late August, when the group met up in central Jerusalem, a girl noted the presence of Arabs and told her friends, the defendants, that Arabs should not be seated there. Other teens joining in suggested attacking them. One said: "Whoever wants to show that he's a man go and hit the Arabs." The girl then shouted racist slogans—"Mohammad is dead" and "Death to Arabs", and several were chased from the area.[22] According to Reuven Rivlin some of the assailants wore shirts with a Betar symbol, which symbolizes both the revisionist Zionist youth movement created by Ze'ev Jabotinsky in 1923 and also a Jerusalem soccer team.[8][23] Press reports state that hundreds of bystanders refrained from intervening.[13] A Palestinian, who had himself been previously scarred by a cut from a bottle in an assault by Jewish youths, said that on the night in question Jewish and Arab workers at the restaurant where he is employed had driven off the mob, which was chanting "Death to the Arabs".[1]

According to the indictment by prosecutors nearly a year later, some 60 youths in Cats' Square began to harassing Arab youths around 11.30 pm, ordering them not to sit there and yelling slogans against Muhammad and Arabs. Some thirty of the group them hived off[2] towards Zion Square in search of Arabs to beat. The pursuing groups were composed of an "inner circle" involved directly in the assault, and an "outer circle" that joined in and encouraged them.[14] An attempt was made to kick a passing Arab, and a group encircled other Arabs who managed to flee. Shortly afterwards, they noted Jamal and three other boys, and gave chase, and hit one in the back of the neck.[22] According to his cousin Nuaman, one attacker said to Jamal, 'What are you doing, you son of a bitch?', and as Jamal tried to flee he was whacked in the chest and fell.[24] The teenagers continued to kick him after he fell down unconscious,[17] but as more police arrived, according to the Palestinians, the crowd quickly dispersed.[24]

When a Magen David Adom ambulance and emergency crew arrived on the scene, a paramedic, Amir Edri, found Jamal without pulse.[17][25] It was initially thought he was dead[24] but after 10 minutes of intense CPR and electric shock his pulse returned.[15] The three other Palestinians in the group suffered only minor injuries.[24]

Though one of the arrested suspects spoke of 40 to 50 youths involved in the beating, police concluded at the time that the number of Jewish youngsters directly implicated ranged from 10 to 15, while a few dozen others just stood around and watched. They also concluded that the attack was unprovoked.[16] On the following Monday, a police spokesman, Sergeant Shmuel Shinhav, described the assault as "simply a lynch".[17] Police later said that the fact Jamal suffered from a heart condition may have contributed to his loss of consciousness.[21] A lawyer for one of the girls who was involved but, according to him, did not participate in the beating, said that the teenagers had intended to beat him to death.[21]

Jamal was taken in a comatose state to the Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Kerem in southwest Jerusalem, where a Palestinian taxi-driver was also undergoing intensive care after suffering serious burns together with five members of the Abu Jayada family of Nahalin from a Molotov cocktail attack outside the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin earlier that day. A Jewish settler and resident of Kfar Etzion, Meir "Meron" Yehoshua, on hearing news of the firebombing, contacted the families of both the taxi-driver and his passengers and volunteered to drive them across the checkpoints to facilitate their visits to the hospital.[7] A week later, police detained three Israeli adolescents from the Bat Ayin settlement, all between 12 and 13, on suspicion of involvement in the taxi firebombing. Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon regarded both incidents as terrorist attacks that "constitute first and foremost an educational and moral failure".[26]

Jamal was in a coma for two days.[7] On emerging from it he said he had no memory of the attack and no fear of returning to downtown Jerusalem.[4] No official state or municipal representatives visited him for several days,[7] but Thursday, 23 August, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin paid Jamal a visit to apologise on behalf of the state. Rivlin told him that the assault was evidently not an 'isolated incident of racism towards Arabs, but a worrying phenomenon in Israeli society' and that it was 'a microcosm of a national problem that could endanger Israeli democracy.'[4][6][27][28] In the following days the police arrested eight teens, two of them girls, ranging in ages from 13 to 19.[5][16] A brother of one of the suspects who was also present asserted that the four Arab boys had provoked passersby and “made passes at Jewish girls", adding that "(Arabs) shouldn't be here, it's our area. For what other reason would they come here if not to make passes at Jewish girls?"[24] Another eyewitness said the Israeli group appeared to be hunting for Arabs.[17]

Jamal's mother called the youths terrorists and added that they themselves were had no political ideas and that, "We brought our children up to study, to be good and to love their homeland." His father was at a loss to understand why the youths did this, but called his son lucky for having survived.[5]

Fear spread throughout Israeli Arab communities in the wake of the two incidents, particularly in Jaffa, Safed and Haifa.[20]

Facebook report

A volunteer for the Elem NGO, which aids Israeli and Palestinian youths in distress, and who happened to be present at the scene, posted an eyewitness account on Facebook that night. She opened her account with the remark:

It's late at night, and I can't sleep. My eyes are full of tears for a good few hours now and my stomach is turning inside out with the question of the loss of humanity, the image of God in mankind, a loss that I am not willing to accept.[15]

According to the report, loud shouts of 'A Jew is a good soul, an Arab is a son of a —,' could be heard and dozens of youths ran and gathered to beat, nearly to death, three Arab youths strolling peacefully along Ben Yehuda Street.[29] When volunteers tried to resuscitate Jamal, she added, a mass of bystanders reportedly asked resentfully why they were reviving an Arab. Later, as Jamal's cousin gave testimony to the police two youths queried why he should be handed a bottle of water, and one of them commented: 'He is an Arab, and they don’t need to walk around in the center of the city, and they deserve it, because this way they will finally be afraid.' She complained that

Children aged 15–18 are killing a child their own age with their own hands. Really with their own hands. Children whose hearts were unmoved when they beat to death a boy their age who lay writhing on the floor.[15]

Investigations and arrests of the perpetrators

According to one report, the whole incident was recorded on official surveillance cameras and the police said other arrests were to be expected.[21] Sources in the Jerusalem Municipality now claim the city's security cameras were being upgraded at the time the attack took place and thus not working in the area. They said that the police would be reviewing, instead, footage recorded on cameras operated by local businesses.[30]

In an early report, Ma'ariv wrote that some 40 minutes before Jamal's near fatal beating, people had called the police to report a brawl, and an on-duty policeman arrived and stood by as the violence unfolded.[16] One Arab employed near the scene who had phoned the police claimed that on arriving a police officer decided not to act when he saw that the brawl involved teenagers.[4] The police department rejected the allegation, and replied that this call referred to the earlier altercation. They affirmed that when, 40 minutes later, further calls arrived reporting violence at Zion Square, additional officers were sent.[4]

Acting Jerusalem police chief General Menachem Yitzhaki established a special team to conduct investigations.[15] The Israeli police had initially called the episode a "brawl", but 3 days later, on Sunday, termed it a "lynching".[24][31] According to a police account given to the magistrates' court, the attack took place in the heart of Jerusalem before a crowd that numbered in the hundreds,[24] some of whose members egged the attackers on.[32] Police have stated that they have found no evidence to corroborate suggestions the Palestinians had been provocative earlier, and were increasingly convinced Jamal had been attacked simply because he was an Arab.[11][16]

Between Sunday and Tuesday, police rounded up 8 youths ranging in age from 13 to 19, including three girls, on suspicion of being involved in the assault, and brought them before magistrates for a remand hearing. One of the girls, still under detention a week later, came from an ultra-Orthodox family and had until recently studied at the Beit Yaakov seminary.[11] Tamar Rotem, examining the backgrounds of some of the youths, identifies them as hailing from low-income Haredi neighbourhoods suffering from neglect and as drop-outs from religious seminaries.[11]

According to one of the defense lawyers, the suspects have provided different accounts of how the events unfolded. One version was that the Jewish youths were singing racist songs and chanting anti-Arab slogans when they came across the four Arab teenagers.[21] Some said that the Arabs were actually harassing them. By Monday, the deputy commander of the Lev Habira police station said investigators believe one girl in the group had incited the attackers.[21] A chase ensued that ended 200 yards away in Zion Square, where 10 people managed to catch Jamal.[5][16] In late August, police filed indictments against 9 teens for aggravated battery, aggravated assault and incitement to violence,[22] and requested the court to hold them in detention until the end of proceedings. One, a girl, was released on house arrest.[33]

Statements by the alleged assailants

Trial

Three teenagers and four men were indicted on charges of assaulting Arabs in Zion Square. Several eventually made plea bargains,[34] confessing to some of the charges. On 8 July 2013, the Jerusalem District Court handed down its verdict on the three minors charged with the assaults, finding them guilty. Defendant No.1 was sentenced to 8 months detention for aggravated assault; defendant No.2 was convicted of incitement to violence and racism, and given three months in detention; defendant No.3 was sentenced to 30 days in prison, and a 2-month suspended sentence, for aiding aggravated assault out of racist motives.[14] The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported the sentence as a 'slap on the wrist'.[35] Ben-Zion Gopstein of Lehava, an organization dedicated to anti-assimilation, declared to reporters outside the courtroom that:'It seems that here the youth raised Jewish pride off the floor, and did what the police should have done.'[36]

Aftermath

The Israeli Minister for Education requested that time be set aside in all junior and high schools throughout Israel for a lesson on the attempted lynching episode..[37][38] The incident did not deter Palestinians from East Jerusalem or those from the West Bank who had obtained permits from visiting downtown Jerusalem.[1] Tamar Rotem reported that life at Zion Square has resumed its normal tranquil rhythms. Interviewing youths from the Bnei Akiva National Religious Party's youth movement, she found they knew nothing of the incident, and, when informed of the circumstances, were quick to come to the defense of the suspected perpetrators. One said: "It's very good that they (the Jewish assailants) hit them. . . It's just too bad they didn't kill them." Another boasted, "Had I been there, I would have killed them." Arabs are, they said, "terrorists who carry out attacks and want to murder all of us".[11] The director of the Masorti community, Rabbi Andrew Sacks, while noting that the attack elicited condemnation over the entire spectrum of the Jewish world, also drew attention to a certain diffidence, in the fact that Lehava had begun circulating a flyer in Jerusalem soon afterwards that was warning Arab males against flirting with or talking to Jewish girls.[39] The pamphlet, distributed both in Hebrew and Arabic, is similar to former messages by the Kach movement, reads in part: "We don't want you to get hurt, respect our girls' honor because they are dear to our hearts," and "If you're thinking of going to the pedestrian mall or the Jerusalem mall in order to go out with Jewish girls, this isn't the place. You can walk around your village and find girlfriends there. Not by us! Last week an Arab who thought he'd find some Jewish girls got hurt. We don't want you to get hurt."[10][39] Jerusalem police later asked the Justice Ministry for guidance in determining whether or not to pursue allegations that Lehava is inciting Jerusalemites to racism.[10]

In response to a claim by two east Jerusalem Arab teens that they were assaulted by three men at Tel Aviv beach after asking for directions and had had great difficulty in obtaining redress from the police when they tried to file a complaint, Knesset representative Ta'al party member Ahmad Tibi put the blame on Israeli police for failing in their duties. "Imagine Israel's response had the tables been turned and a Jew was lynched at an Arab town," Tibi declared, adding that a 'hunting season for Arabs is at its height with support from a rightist government and racist Knesset'. An Israeli news source phrased this story in its first sentence as: "Two East Jerusalem teens are claiming they were assaulted by three men in Tel Aviv earlier this week in what could be another case of racist violence after last week's Jerusalem lynch."[40]

In later years where violent rampages have led to the killing or beating up of Palestinian youths, the case of Jamal Julani has been cited to argue that racially motivated attacks on Palestinians are nothing new,[41][42] or that the lessons inculcated at the time have not sunk in.[37] Mohammed Sayyad of At-Tur, the youth who had alerted police to the violence against Julani, was himself attacked while having a meal by an Israeli group hunting Arabs 2 years later, who threw stones and threatened to kill him.[43]

The public debate in Israel

Foreign commentary

Official reactions

Domestic

 Israel:

Foreign

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Joel Greenberg, 'Jerusalem's late-night dark side,' Haaretz 26 August 2012:'It was a late summer night on Jerusalem’s Jaffa Road, nearly a week after the pummeling of a young Arab by a group of Jewish teenagers a few blocks away in Zion Square, an attack police called an attempted lynch.'
  2. 1 2 "3 minors sentenced to imprisonment in J'lem mob attack on Arab youth". The Jerusalem Post. 8 July 2013. Judge Ya'akov Tzaban, who handed out the sentences, was quoted by Channel 10 as saying the defendants were part of 'a group of youths that were motivated by hatred and carried out a lynch'.
  3. ↑ 'Commentary on the commentary,' Seth J. Frantzman, The Jerusalem Post, August 26, 2012
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Mark Weiss (24 August 2012). "Knesset speaker condemns racist attack". The Irish Times.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Isabel Kershner (20 August 2012). "Young Israelis Held in Attack on Arabs". The New York Times.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Jodi Rudoren; Isabel Kershner (27 August 2012). "After Attacks, Israeli Schools Confront Hate". The New York Times.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Yuval Ben-Ami (21 August 2012). "Palestinian victims of violent attacks get a surprise visit". Haaretz.
  8. 1 2 Lahav Harkov (23 August 2012). "Rivlin to Arab J'lem 'lynching' victim: We're sorry". The Jerusalem Post. Eight teenagers were arrested this week for beating Julani almost to death.
  9. ↑ "Israeli youths arrested over assault on Palestinians". BBC News. 20 August 2012. An Israeli policeman said Jamal was beaten so severely that he lost consciousness and was thought to be dead until a paramedic crew arrived and resuscitated him.
  10. 1 2 3 Akiva Eldar (29 August 2012). "Israel Police may probe group warning Arab men not to date Jewish women". Haaretz. the nearly fatal group beating of an Arab teenager in downtown Jerusalem earlier this month
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Tamar Rotem (26 August 2012). "A sinister history of anti-Arab violence". Haaretz.
  12. 1 2 Robert Mackey (20 August 2012). "Account of 'a Lynch' in Jerusalem on Facebook". The New York Times.
  13. 1 2 3 'Palestinian victim of hate attack leaves hospital,' Agence France-Presse, 24 August 2012. Archived 25 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  14. 1 2 3 Yair Ettinger (8 July 2013). "Jerusalem court hands jail terms to three Jewish minors over Arab lynchings". Haaretz.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 Nir Hasson (17 August 2012). "In suspected Jerusalem lynch, dozens of Jewish youths attack 3 Palestinians". Haaretz.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Aaron Kalman (22 August 2012). "Cop reportedly witnessed brutal Jerusalem beating". The Times of Israel.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Amy Davidson (21 August 2012). "An Attack in Zion Square". The New Yorker.
  18. 1 2 Natasha Mozgovaya (22 August 2012). "Jewish organizations condemn recent attacks against Palestinians". Haaretz.
  19. ↑ Yehudit Oppenheimer (22 August 2012). "Jerusalem lynch not surprising". Ynetnews.
  20. 1 2 3 Hassan Shaalan (22 August 2012). "In wake of lynch, Arabs fear the streets". Ynetnews.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Herb Keinon; Lahav Harkov; Melanie Lidman (21 August 2012). "PM on J'lem 'lynch': We will not tolerate racism". The Jerusalem Post.
  22. 1 2 3 Noam (Dabul) Dvir (28 August 2012). "9 suspects indicted in Jerusalem lynch case". Ynetnews.
  23. ↑ Jonathan Lis (23 August 2012). "Knesset Speaker apologizes to hospitalized victim of Jerusalem 'lynch'". Haaretz. Rivlin said that the Likud ideological precursor Ze'ev Jabotinsky would be ashamed of these actions. 'Jabotinsky is turning in his grave when these youths are baring the Beitar symbol on their shirts and are supposedly acting in his name.'
  24. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Oz Rosenberg (20 August 2012). "Israel Police: Hundreds watched attempt to lynch Palestinians in Jerusalem, did not interfere". Haaretz.
  25. ↑ Daniel K. Eisenbud, 'Two teens, one adult sentenced in unprovoked lynching of Israeli Arab ,' Jerusalem Post 8 July 2013.
  26. ↑ Karin Brulliard (26 August 2012). "Three Israeli youths arrested in firebombing of Palestinian taxi". The Washington Post.
  27. ↑ Noam (Dabul) Dvir (23 August 2012). "J'lem lynch victim released from hospital". Ynetnews.
  28. ↑ Jonathan Lis (23 August 2012). "Knesset Speaker apologizes to hospitalized victim of Jerusalem 'lynch'". Haaretz.
  29. ↑ Mairav Zonszein, 'Palestinian youth beaten unconscious in attempted J'lem 'lynch',' +972 magazine 17 August 2012.
  30. ↑ Noam (Dabul) Dvir (22 August 2012). "Lynch suspects to remain in custody". Ynetnews.
  31. ↑ Editorial (21 August 2012). "The school of lynching". Haaretz.
  32. 1 2 Yehudit Oppenheimer (24 August 2012). "Jerusalem lynch not surprising". Ynetnews.
  33. ↑ "Nine Jewish teens indicted in attack on Palestinians". The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. JTA. 28 August 2012.
  34. ↑ Aviel Magnezi (19 May 2013). "Another plea bargain struck with Zion Square attack suspect". Ynetnews.
  35. ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 'Zion Square Jewish 'Lynch' Teens Get Slap on Wrist,' The Forward 8 July 2013.
  36. ↑ Max Blumenthal, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, Nation Books 2014 pp.323-324,p.324.
  37. 1 2 Alon Gratch, The Israeli Mind: How the Israeli National Character Shapes Our World, St. Martin's Press 2015 p.145.
  38. ↑ Jodi Rudoren, Isabel Kerschner, 'After Attacks, Israeli Schools Confront Hate,' New York Times 27 August 2012
  39. 1 2 Rabbi Andrew Sacks (23 August 2012). "Jewish Jerusalem 'Lynch'". The Jerusalem Post.
  40. ↑ Hassan Shaalan (22 August 2012). "2 Arab teens reportedly assaulted in Tel Aviv". Ynetnews.
  41. ↑ Ilene Prusher, 'Let’s face it: Israel has a racism problem,' Haaretz, 12 March 2013.'When an Arab attacks a Jew, he’s a terrorist, he’s been taught to hate. When a Jew attacks an Arab, he’s just a loner, an oddball, a bad egg. But we’ve seen so many bad eggs at this point that something here has begun to stink.'
  42. ↑ Philip Kleinfeld, 'Racists Are Rampaging Through Israel,' Vice News 1 August 2014.
  43. ↑ Nir Hasson, 'Extreme rightists attack Palestinians in Jerusalem as teens laid to rest,' Haaretz 1 July 2014.
  44. 1 2 3 Mairav Zonszein (24 August 2012). "When violence comes home to roost". Haaretz.
  45. ↑ Tamar Rotem (26 August 2012). "A sinister history of anti-Arab violence". Haaretz. Retrieved 9 September 2012.
  46. ↑ Daniel Seidemann, founder of the NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem, wrote to Goldberg challenging this, stating 'A lot of Israeli denial is based on the fact that these things happen "there", in the West Bank, not "here". And stuff like this does happen in Hebron and East Jerusalem (not all the time, but not rarely).' Jeffrey Goldberg (21 August 2012). "The Meaning of the Jerusalem Lynching". The Atlantic.; Yuval Ben-Ami (21 August 2012). "Palestinian victims of violent attacks get a surprise visit". Haaretz. While it's not uncommon to hear about settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank, an event such as this in West Jerusalem is almost unprecedented.
  47. ↑ Jeffrey Goldberg (20 August 2012). "A Near-Lynching in Jerusalem". The Atlantic.
  48. ↑ Jill Jacobs (21 August 2012). "'Lynching' in Zion Square". The Forward.
  49. ↑ Bradley Burston (21 August 2012). "Islamophobia, not Islam, will be the end of Israel". Haaretz.
  50. ↑ Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg (24 August 2012). "Israel Faces Extremists, U.S. Ignores Them". The Forward.
  51. ↑ Gil Troy (28 August 2012). "Israeli Democracy Rises to the Occasion". The Daily Beast/Newsweek.
  52. ↑ "Attack on Palestinian Youth in Jerusalem" (Press release). US State Department. 22 August 2012.
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