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Dawabsha family, july 31 2015 burned by settlers |
22 may 2020
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Amiram Ben-Uliel, a Jewish settler, is lead by police for his sentencing hearing over the 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler, Ali Saeed Dawabsheh and his parents
Israeli media and Zionist apologists everywhere are busy whitewashing Israel’s globally-tattered image using the rare indictment of an Israeli terrorist, Amiram Ben Uliel, who was recently convicted for murdering the Palestinian Dawabsheh family, including an 18-month-old toddler in the town of Duma, south of Nablus. The conviction of Ben Uliel by an Israeli three-judge court on May 18, is expectedly celebrated by some as proof that the Israeli judicial system is fair and transparent, and that Israel does not need to be investigated by outside parties. The timing of the Israeli court’s decision to convict Ben Uliel of three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder was particularly important, as it followed a decision by the the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to move forward with its investigation of war crimes committed in Occupied Palestine. Considering how Israel’s extremists, especially those living illegally in the Occupied West Bank, are governed through a separate, and far more lenient system than the military regime that governs Palestinians, the seemingly-clear indictment of the Israeli terrorist deserves further scrutiny. |
Israel’s apologists were quick to celebrate the verdict by the court, to the extent that Israel’s own internal intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, known for its notorious torture methods of Palestinian prisoners, described the decision as “an important milestone in the battle against Jewish terror”.
Others labored to separate Ben Uliel’s grizzly attack from the rest of Israeli society, implying that the man was a lone wolf and not the direct outcome of Israel’s unhinged racism and violent discourse directed at innocent Palestinians.
Despite the clear indictment of Ben Uliel, the Israeli court was keen on accentuating the point that the Israeli terrorist acted alone and that he was not a member of a terrorist organization.
Based on that logic, the court argued that the judges “could not rule out that the attack was motivated by a desire for revenge or racism without Ben-Uliel actually being a member of an organized group.”
The verdict was a best case scenario for Israel’s image under the circumstances, as it deliberately absolved the massive terrorist network that spawned the likes of Ben Uliel and the Israeli army that protects those very extremists on a daily basis, while whitewashing Israel’s deservingly bad reputation as a violent society with an unjust judicial system.
But Ben Uliel is, by no measure, a lone wolf.
When the Israeli terrorist, along with other masked assailants, broke into the house of Sa’ad and Reham Dawabsheh at 4 am on July 31, 2015, he was clearly on a mission to elevate his name within the ardently racist, extremist society which has made the murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians a sort of a divine mission.
Ben Uliel achieved his objectives completely. Not only did he kill Sa’ad and Reham, but their 18-month-old son, Ali, as well. The only surviving member of the family was 4-year-old Ahmed, who was severely burnt.
The murder of the Palestinian family, little Ali in particular, quickly became the source of joy and celebration among Jewish extremists. In December 2015, six months after the murder of the Dawabsheh family, a 25-second video clip that went viral on social media showed a crowd of Israelis celebrating the death of Ali.
The video showed a “room of jumping, dancing men wearing white skullcaps, many with the long sidelocks of Orthodox Jews. Some of them are brandishing guns and knives,” The New York Times reported.
“Two (of the celebrating Israelis) appear to be stabbing pieces of paper they hold in their hands, which the television station identified as pictures of an 18-month-old child, Ali Dawabsheh.”
Despite Israeli police claims that they were ‘investigating’ the hate fest, there is little evidence to suggest that anyone was held accountable for the unmitigated celebration of violence against an innocent family and a toddler. In fact, Israeli State prosecutors later claimed that they had lost the original video of the dancing extremists.
The celebration of Israeli terrorism carried on unabated for years, to the extent that on June 19, 2018, Israeli extremists chanted openly, taunting Ali’s grandfather as he was leaving an Israeli court, with such obscene slogans, as “Where is Ali? Ali’s dead,” “Ali’s on the grill”.
The heinous murder of Ali and his family, and the subsequent trial were added to an array of other events that starkly challenged Israel’s carefully concocted image of being a liberal democracy.
On March 24, 2016, Elor Azaria killed a Palestinian man, Fattah al-Sharif, in cold blood. Al-Sharif was left bleeding on the ground while unconscious after, per Israeli army claim, trying to stab an Israeli soldier.
Azaria received a light sentence of eighteen months, soon to be freed in a massive celebration, like a conquering hero. Israel’s top government officials, including Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, supported the cold-blooded murderer throughout the trial. It will not come as a complete surprise if Azaria claims a top position in the Israeli government at some point in the future.
The celebration of murderers and terrorists like Ben Uliel and Azaria, is not a new phenomenon in Israeli society. Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli terrorist who killed scores of Palestinian worshippers while kneeling for prayer at Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil (Hebron) in 1994, is now perceived as a modern martyr, a saint of biblical proportions.
In such cases, when the nature of the crime is so overwhelmingly violent, the extent of which forces itself on global news media, Israel is left with only one option – to use the indictment of ‘Jewish terrorism’ as an opportunity to reinvent itself, its ‘democratic’ system, its ‘transparent’ judicial proceedings, and so on.
Meanwhile, Israeli media and its affiliates worldwide labor to describe the collective ‘shock’ and ‘outrage’ felt by ‘law-abiding’, ‘peace-loving’ Israelis.
The murder of the Dawabsheh family, although one of numerous acts of violence perpetrated by Jewish extremists and the Israeli military against innocent Palestinians, is the perfect case in point.
Indeed, a quick look at the numbers and reports produced by the United Nations indicates that the Jewish settlers’ murder of the Palestinian family was not the exception but the norm.
In a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in June 2018, UN investigators spoke of an exponential rise of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.
“Between January and April 2018, OCHA documented 84 incidents attributed to Israeli settlers resulting in Palestinian casualties (27 incidents) or in damage to Palestinian property (57 incidents),” the report read. That trend continued, at times markedly increasing, with very little accountability.
The Israeli rights group, Yesh Din, has been following up on the small percentage of settler violence cases that were opened by the Israeli military and police. The group concluded that, “of 185 investigations opened between 2014 and 2017 that reached a final stage, only 21, or 11.4%, led to the prosecution of offenders, while the other 164 files were closed without indictment.”
The reason for this is simple: the hundreds of thousands of Jewish extremists who have been transferred to permanently settle in the occupied territories, an act that starkly violates international law, do not operate outside the colonial paradigm designed by the Israeli government.
In some way, they too, are ‘soldiers’, not only because they are armed and coordinate their movement with the Israeli army, but because their ever-expanding settlements lie at the heart of the Israeli occupation and its continued project of ethnic cleansing.
Therefore, Jewish settler violence, like that committed by Ben Uliel, should not be analyzed separately from the violence meted out by the Israeli army, but seen within the larger context of the violent Zionist ideology that governs Israeli society as a whole.
It follows that settler violence can only end with the end of the military occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, and with the demise of the racist Zionist ideology that spews hatred, embraces racism and rationalizes murder.
Others labored to separate Ben Uliel’s grizzly attack from the rest of Israeli society, implying that the man was a lone wolf and not the direct outcome of Israel’s unhinged racism and violent discourse directed at innocent Palestinians.
Despite the clear indictment of Ben Uliel, the Israeli court was keen on accentuating the point that the Israeli terrorist acted alone and that he was not a member of a terrorist organization.
Based on that logic, the court argued that the judges “could not rule out that the attack was motivated by a desire for revenge or racism without Ben-Uliel actually being a member of an organized group.”
The verdict was a best case scenario for Israel’s image under the circumstances, as it deliberately absolved the massive terrorist network that spawned the likes of Ben Uliel and the Israeli army that protects those very extremists on a daily basis, while whitewashing Israel’s deservingly bad reputation as a violent society with an unjust judicial system.
But Ben Uliel is, by no measure, a lone wolf.
When the Israeli terrorist, along with other masked assailants, broke into the house of Sa’ad and Reham Dawabsheh at 4 am on July 31, 2015, he was clearly on a mission to elevate his name within the ardently racist, extremist society which has made the murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians a sort of a divine mission.
Ben Uliel achieved his objectives completely. Not only did he kill Sa’ad and Reham, but their 18-month-old son, Ali, as well. The only surviving member of the family was 4-year-old Ahmed, who was severely burnt.
The murder of the Palestinian family, little Ali in particular, quickly became the source of joy and celebration among Jewish extremists. In December 2015, six months after the murder of the Dawabsheh family, a 25-second video clip that went viral on social media showed a crowd of Israelis celebrating the death of Ali.
The video showed a “room of jumping, dancing men wearing white skullcaps, many with the long sidelocks of Orthodox Jews. Some of them are brandishing guns and knives,” The New York Times reported.
“Two (of the celebrating Israelis) appear to be stabbing pieces of paper they hold in their hands, which the television station identified as pictures of an 18-month-old child, Ali Dawabsheh.”
Despite Israeli police claims that they were ‘investigating’ the hate fest, there is little evidence to suggest that anyone was held accountable for the unmitigated celebration of violence against an innocent family and a toddler. In fact, Israeli State prosecutors later claimed that they had lost the original video of the dancing extremists.
The celebration of Israeli terrorism carried on unabated for years, to the extent that on June 19, 2018, Israeli extremists chanted openly, taunting Ali’s grandfather as he was leaving an Israeli court, with such obscene slogans, as “Where is Ali? Ali’s dead,” “Ali’s on the grill”.
The heinous murder of Ali and his family, and the subsequent trial were added to an array of other events that starkly challenged Israel’s carefully concocted image of being a liberal democracy.
On March 24, 2016, Elor Azaria killed a Palestinian man, Fattah al-Sharif, in cold blood. Al-Sharif was left bleeding on the ground while unconscious after, per Israeli army claim, trying to stab an Israeli soldier.
Azaria received a light sentence of eighteen months, soon to be freed in a massive celebration, like a conquering hero. Israel’s top government officials, including Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, supported the cold-blooded murderer throughout the trial. It will not come as a complete surprise if Azaria claims a top position in the Israeli government at some point in the future.
The celebration of murderers and terrorists like Ben Uliel and Azaria, is not a new phenomenon in Israeli society. Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli terrorist who killed scores of Palestinian worshippers while kneeling for prayer at Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil (Hebron) in 1994, is now perceived as a modern martyr, a saint of biblical proportions.
In such cases, when the nature of the crime is so overwhelmingly violent, the extent of which forces itself on global news media, Israel is left with only one option – to use the indictment of ‘Jewish terrorism’ as an opportunity to reinvent itself, its ‘democratic’ system, its ‘transparent’ judicial proceedings, and so on.
Meanwhile, Israeli media and its affiliates worldwide labor to describe the collective ‘shock’ and ‘outrage’ felt by ‘law-abiding’, ‘peace-loving’ Israelis.
The murder of the Dawabsheh family, although one of numerous acts of violence perpetrated by Jewish extremists and the Israeli military against innocent Palestinians, is the perfect case in point.
Indeed, a quick look at the numbers and reports produced by the United Nations indicates that the Jewish settlers’ murder of the Palestinian family was not the exception but the norm.
In a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in June 2018, UN investigators spoke of an exponential rise of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.
“Between January and April 2018, OCHA documented 84 incidents attributed to Israeli settlers resulting in Palestinian casualties (27 incidents) or in damage to Palestinian property (57 incidents),” the report read. That trend continued, at times markedly increasing, with very little accountability.
The Israeli rights group, Yesh Din, has been following up on the small percentage of settler violence cases that were opened by the Israeli military and police. The group concluded that, “of 185 investigations opened between 2014 and 2017 that reached a final stage, only 21, or 11.4%, led to the prosecution of offenders, while the other 164 files were closed without indictment.”
The reason for this is simple: the hundreds of thousands of Jewish extremists who have been transferred to permanently settle in the occupied territories, an act that starkly violates international law, do not operate outside the colonial paradigm designed by the Israeli government.
In some way, they too, are ‘soldiers’, not only because they are armed and coordinate their movement with the Israeli army, but because their ever-expanding settlements lie at the heart of the Israeli occupation and its continued project of ethnic cleansing.
Therefore, Jewish settler violence, like that committed by Ben Uliel, should not be analyzed separately from the violence meted out by the Israeli army, but seen within the larger context of the violent Zionist ideology that governs Israeli society as a whole.
It follows that settler violence can only end with the end of the military occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, and with the demise of the racist Zionist ideology that spews hatred, embraces racism and rationalizes murder.
18 may 2020
Ben-Uliel in court on Monday
Amiram Ben-Uliel also convicted of attempted murder, arson for attack on Palestinian Dawabsha family that killed parents and 18-month-old baby; avoids terror charges
The Lod District Court on Monday convicted a Jewish extremist of murder in a 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents.
The court ruled that the Jewish settler Amiram Ben-Uliel hurled firebombs into a West Bank home in July 2015, killing 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh. His mother, Riham, and father, Saad, later died of their wounds. Ali,s 4-year-old brother Ahmad survived.
The case sent shock waves through Israel and helped fuel months of Israeli-Palestinian violence. It came at a time when Israel was dealing with a wave of vigilante-style attacks by suspected Jewish extremists.
But the deadly firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma touched a particularly sensitive nerve.
In addition to three counts of murder, Ben-Uliel was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and one count of arson. The court acquitted him on charges of membership in a terror organization due to lack of evidence, but Judge Ruth Lorch in the verdict that it could be denied that the crime stemmed from "a racist act of revenge."
Hussein Dawabshe, the father of Riham, responded to the decision saying that it is important for justice to be done so no one else’s lives will be ruined and destroyed like the three murdered Dawabshes. "This trial will not bring back my family, but I want no one to ever go through such trauma again," Hussein said.
The attack was condemned across the Israeli political spectrum, 'with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then pledged "zero tolerance" in the fight to bring the assailants to justice. Investigators placed several suspects under administrative detention, a measure typically reserved for alleged Palestinian militants that allows authorities to hold suspects for months without charge.
Critics, however, noted that lesser non-deadly attacks, such as firebombings that damaged mosques and churches, had gone unpunished for years. And as the investigation into the Duma attack dragged on, Palestinians complained of a double-standard, where suspected Palestinian militants are quickly rounded up and prosecuted under a military legal system that gives them few rights while Jewish Israelis are protected by the country's criminal laws.
As the judges walked into the court, 25-year-old Ben-Uliel sat slouched in the dock, a large white skullcap on his head and blue mask on his face, reading what looked to be a biblical text.
The Shin Bet internal security service said Ben-Uliel had confessed to planning and carrying out the attack, and two others were accessories.
It said he claimed the arson was in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli by Palestinians a month earlier.
Ben-Uliel's lawyers said they were not surprised by the verdict and that their client's confession was allegedly made under torture.
The sentencing hearing was set for June 9.
Amiram Ben-Uliel also convicted of attempted murder, arson for attack on Palestinian Dawabsha family that killed parents and 18-month-old baby; avoids terror charges
The Lod District Court on Monday convicted a Jewish extremist of murder in a 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents.
The court ruled that the Jewish settler Amiram Ben-Uliel hurled firebombs into a West Bank home in July 2015, killing 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh. His mother, Riham, and father, Saad, later died of their wounds. Ali,s 4-year-old brother Ahmad survived.
The case sent shock waves through Israel and helped fuel months of Israeli-Palestinian violence. It came at a time when Israel was dealing with a wave of vigilante-style attacks by suspected Jewish extremists.
But the deadly firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma touched a particularly sensitive nerve.
In addition to three counts of murder, Ben-Uliel was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and one count of arson. The court acquitted him on charges of membership in a terror organization due to lack of evidence, but Judge Ruth Lorch in the verdict that it could be denied that the crime stemmed from "a racist act of revenge."
Hussein Dawabshe, the father of Riham, responded to the decision saying that it is important for justice to be done so no one else’s lives will be ruined and destroyed like the three murdered Dawabshes. "This trial will not bring back my family, but I want no one to ever go through such trauma again," Hussein said.
The attack was condemned across the Israeli political spectrum, 'with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then pledged "zero tolerance" in the fight to bring the assailants to justice. Investigators placed several suspects under administrative detention, a measure typically reserved for alleged Palestinian militants that allows authorities to hold suspects for months without charge.
Critics, however, noted that lesser non-deadly attacks, such as firebombings that damaged mosques and churches, had gone unpunished for years. And as the investigation into the Duma attack dragged on, Palestinians complained of a double-standard, where suspected Palestinian militants are quickly rounded up and prosecuted under a military legal system that gives them few rights while Jewish Israelis are protected by the country's criminal laws.
As the judges walked into the court, 25-year-old Ben-Uliel sat slouched in the dock, a large white skullcap on his head and blue mask on his face, reading what looked to be a biblical text.
The Shin Bet internal security service said Ben-Uliel had confessed to planning and carrying out the attack, and two others were accessories.
It said he claimed the arson was in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli by Palestinians a month earlier.
Ben-Uliel's lawyers said they were not surprised by the verdict and that their client's confession was allegedly made under torture.
The sentencing hearing was set for June 9.
2 mar 2020
5 years after a brutal act of terror by a gang of Israelis, who set a family’s home on fire, causing the deaths of the mother, father and baby, and leaving only the 4-year old alive, critically wounded with burns all over his body, the final arguments were presented Sunday in the case of the last Israeli charged with involvement in the murder of the Dawabsha family.
Amiram Ben-Ulliel was the ringleader of the group who set the fire, according to the prosecution and Ulliel’s own words. He led a group of teens, several of whom were underage, into the Palestinian village that night with the intent of harming Palestinians.
Ben-Ulliel has state in court and to police that he did participate in the murders, but prosecutors have so far failed to get a full conviction. Instead, the Israeli court ordered that his admission of guilt and description of the crime could be kept out of court because of Ben-Ulliel’s claim that he was tortured by Israeli police — a claim which police deny.
The indictment against Ben-Ulliel was changed five months ago, after a deal with the prosecution, from a charge of participating in the crime, to a lesser charge of planning to commit a racially motivated crime.
The Israeli Central Court in Lod on Sunday held closing arguments in the case related to the burning and killing of the Dawabsha family by a group of settlers on the 31st of July 2015 who set their house on fire in the village of Douma, Nablus district.
Prosecutor Yael Atzmon presented a complex case, noting that in the many interrogations he underwent, there were points where he confessed to the arson murder, and that outside the course of those interrogations, he then reconstructed the crime at the scene in Duma.
But the relatives of the Dawabsha family have no hope that this final case will bring closure – since the lawyers for Amiram Ben Uliel had previously managed to get the charges against him significantly reduced.
This is despite the fact that Ben-Uliel has freely admitted his involvement in the crime, and had described the scene and progression of events in detail to Israeli interrogators in ways that he could not have known if he had not been a part of the crime.
The court set the date of April 26th for the release of its verdict in the case of Ben-Ulliel.
Amiram Ben-Ulliel was the ringleader of the group who set the fire, according to the prosecution and Ulliel’s own words. He led a group of teens, several of whom were underage, into the Palestinian village that night with the intent of harming Palestinians.
Ben-Ulliel has state in court and to police that he did participate in the murders, but prosecutors have so far failed to get a full conviction. Instead, the Israeli court ordered that his admission of guilt and description of the crime could be kept out of court because of Ben-Ulliel’s claim that he was tortured by Israeli police — a claim which police deny.
The indictment against Ben-Ulliel was changed five months ago, after a deal with the prosecution, from a charge of participating in the crime, to a lesser charge of planning to commit a racially motivated crime.
The Israeli Central Court in Lod on Sunday held closing arguments in the case related to the burning and killing of the Dawabsha family by a group of settlers on the 31st of July 2015 who set their house on fire in the village of Douma, Nablus district.
Prosecutor Yael Atzmon presented a complex case, noting that in the many interrogations he underwent, there were points where he confessed to the arson murder, and that outside the course of those interrogations, he then reconstructed the crime at the scene in Duma.
But the relatives of the Dawabsha family have no hope that this final case will bring closure – since the lawyers for Amiram Ben Uliel had previously managed to get the charges against him significantly reduced.
This is despite the fact that Ben-Uliel has freely admitted his involvement in the crime, and had described the scene and progression of events in detail to Israeli interrogators in ways that he could not have known if he had not been a part of the crime.
The court set the date of April 26th for the release of its verdict in the case of Ben-Ulliel.
11 oct 2019
One of the attackers Meir Ettinger
On July 31, 2015, the Palestinian Dawabsha family was attacked in their home, by Israeli settlers throwing molotov cocktails, setting fire to the house, killing an 18 month old boy named Ali, and subsequently his parents Sa’ad Mohammad, and his wife Reham, leaving 4 year Ahmad suffering third degree burns.
The family home in Douma village, south of the northern occupied West Bank city of Nablus, was ambushed by illegal extremist Israeli settlers, while the family slept, resulting in extreme burns suffered by all members of the Dawabsha family.
According to Israeli ‘Yedioth Ahronoth’ newspaper, the fanatic Israeli Jewish settler whose name and identity were kept confidential, was charged with second-degree murder for the arson-murder, is joining the Israeli army next year.
The Israeli court dropped murder charges against the accused Israeli settler, and decided to involve him in a one-year military training to “adjust his behaviour.”
‘Yedioth Ahronoth’ stated that the Israeli court dropped the original indictment which had charged the accused with conspiring to commit a crime, while the new, amended indictment charges him with being involved in hate crimes against Palestinians.
In July 2018, the court released the main accused, a minor at the time of the crime, to house arrest after being kept in jail for two years. The court had ruled that his confessions were inadmissible because they were allegedly obtained by the Israeli Shin Bet security service under extreme duress.
However, he admitted guilt as part of a plea deal between his lawyers and the state prosecutor’s office in the central district court in Lod. He admitted to planning the torching of a Palestinian home in a racially motivated conspiracy and to marking out the Palestinian village with another settler.
On July 31, 2015, the Palestinian Dawabsha family was attacked in their home, by Israeli settlers throwing molotov cocktails, setting fire to the house, killing an 18 month old boy named Ali, and subsequently his parents Sa’ad Mohammad, and his wife Reham, leaving 4 year Ahmad suffering third degree burns.
The family home in Douma village, south of the northern occupied West Bank city of Nablus, was ambushed by illegal extremist Israeli settlers, while the family slept, resulting in extreme burns suffered by all members of the Dawabsha family.
According to Israeli ‘Yedioth Ahronoth’ newspaper, the fanatic Israeli Jewish settler whose name and identity were kept confidential, was charged with second-degree murder for the arson-murder, is joining the Israeli army next year.
The Israeli court dropped murder charges against the accused Israeli settler, and decided to involve him in a one-year military training to “adjust his behaviour.”
‘Yedioth Ahronoth’ stated that the Israeli court dropped the original indictment which had charged the accused with conspiring to commit a crime, while the new, amended indictment charges him with being involved in hate crimes against Palestinians.
In July 2018, the court released the main accused, a minor at the time of the crime, to house arrest after being kept in jail for two years. The court had ruled that his confessions were inadmissible because they were allegedly obtained by the Israeli Shin Bet security service under extreme duress.
However, he admitted guilt as part of a plea deal between his lawyers and the state prosecutor’s office in the central district court in Lod. He admitted to planning the torching of a Palestinian home in a racially motivated conspiracy and to marking out the Palestinian village with another settler.
