Killing Judge Is Sheer, Cold-blooded Murder

17 March 2014

By Khalid Amayreh

Official Palestinian and Jordanian reactions to the cold-blooded murder of Ra'ed (Raji) Ze'ieter by Israeli soldiers on Monday have been minimal and almost totally inadequate to say the very least.

The 38-year-old Jordanian-Palestinian judge was traveling via the Allenby Bridge Crossing when he was shot and killed by a trigger-happy Israeli soldier. Hundreds or perhaps thousands of innocent Palestinians have been murdered this way at the indifferent hands of Gestapo-like Israeli troops.

The soldier who murdered the young judge claimed that Ze'ieter attacked him and tried to snatch his rifle, prompting him to shoot and kill him.

However, there are serious questions as to the veracity of the Israeli account of the incident. Indeed, why would an unarmed man in the prime of his life, who wanted to visit his family, attack crack and heavily armed soldiers, notorious for following the motto "shoot first, and ask questions later."!

Besides, even if the Jordanian judge scuffled with the soldier or soldiers at the Allenby Crossing, there must have been more than one way to neutralize or control the man without killing him.

After all, the man was unarmed and could hardly pose a real threat to the soldiers.

This shows that the murderer wanted to spill blood, pure and simple, knowing that the Israeli state and its racist justice system won't punish but rather award him for the killing.

We who live in occupied Palestine under the Israeli military occupation don't need to indulge in hypothesizing about Israeli behaviors toward the Palestinians. Cold-blooded murder has always been Israel's modus operandi toward our people. It would be naïve to think otherwise.

We all remember how Israeli soldiers during the past two intifadas lured Palestinian school children to get to the streets in order to shoot and kill them. And then we would hear pornographically-dishonest Israeli spokespersons claim that "our soldiers shot into the air and a number of Palestinian children got killed."!

Disgraceful reactions

The murderous killing by Israeli troops of Ra'ed Ze'ieter is not the first and won't be the last of its kind. Israel has always been murdering innocent Arabs knowingly and deliberately since time immemorial. This is the job Israeli soldiers are trained to do.

As to the Israeli government, its media, spokesmen and mouthpieces, their job is first and foremost to justify and rationalize the murderous killings. And in case the projected justifications and rationalizations sound unbelievable or unconvincing, the Israeli lying machine would simply concoct a "rational account" of the given incident.

Both Palestinian and Jordanian authorities have urged the Israeli government to carry out a thorough investigation into what happened. But since when was Israel honest enough to investigate its own crimes? Can murderers and child-killers be trusted to investigate themselves?

Indeed, expecting Israel to conduct a thorough and honest investigation of the latest murder at the Allenby crossing is akin to seeking justice at a thieves' den or seeking safety at a snake's hole.

We are not demanding that Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (PA) launch war on Israel. We know the facts on the ground too well as the two Arab entities are too weak to even think of making a truly pro-active response to Israeli provocation.

But neither Jordan nor the PA is completely helpless. Jordan does have some real diplomatic leverage it can utilize to curtail Israeli insolence and hegemony. Similarly, the PA can threaten to scale down or even stop the ignominious "security" coordination with Israel.

However, a meaningful Arab response to yet another unprovoked murder by Israel of an innocent Arab would require genuine freedom of Arab states from the state of subservience to the US, Israel's guardian-ally.

This gets us to the inevitable conclusion that Israel will continue to murder Arabs at will, with nearly total impunity, especially in the absence of any real deterrent on the part of the Arabs. But this situation can't be sustained forever. Oppression, if allowed to continue, justifies both resistance and violence. The Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden said:

I and the public know,
What all school children learn,
Those to whom evil is done,
Do evil in return.

 

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