By Or Amit

I. Don’t call it an execution

When I hear the word “execution”, I think of Adolf Eichmann, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and other men who had committed capitals offenses and were tried, convicted, and put to death through the legal system.

Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif was not executed. He did not commit a capital offense; he was not arrested, tried or convicted; and he was not awarded any of the rights any accused person is entitled to, regardless of the crimes he may have committed.

Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif was murdered by a Jewish-Israeli member of an occupying force. Say it, loud and clear: Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif was murdered by a Jewish-Israeli member of an occupying force. If we mention that the terrorists of the Brussels airport and the 9/11 attacks were Muslims, let us state that the Hebron murderer is Jewish, and let us state that he is Israeli. And let’s call him a murderer or a terrorist. Stop calling what he did an execution.

II. Some Grim Predictions

As Azraya’s crime has already been downgraded from murder to manslaughter, let us engage in some predictions, in line with the grim mood of these days: The Judeo-Israeli murderer Elor Azraya will not be tried. He’ll cut a deal with the prosecution, admit to “improper use of weapon” and “disorderly conduct”, and receive three months in prison. He’ll be released after serving two months. Thousands of “Israeli patriots” will wait for him outside the military prison walls and greet him with flowers and chocolates. One of the Israeli far-right parties will offer him a spot on their next Knesset electoral list, but he’d be placed too low to make it into the Israeli parliament. He’ll start writing a column for Israel Hayom shortly thereafter.

III. Azraya’s Real Crime

It is easier to commit murder than to justify it, said the Roman jurist Aemilius Papinianus, but had he lived in Israel in the twenty-first century, he would have had to rethink the whole thing. Apart from the “usual suspects”—Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, B. Michael and a few other righteous among their nation—hardly anyone in the Israeli media is willing to condemn al-Sharif’s murder ‘qua’ murder. Listen to Israeli radio, read Israeli newspapers, watch Israeli television: those who condemn the murder condemn it for tarnishing Israel’s public image. It’s terrible, just terrible, to let the ‘goyim’ see such things. They might get the wrong impression. Shame on Elor Azraya for giving our enemies such powerful public relations ammunition.

That other thing—the bullet through the head of a wounded, immobilized, semi-conscious man—doesn’t compute into the condemnation.

– Or Amit is a freelance writer living in Dresden, Germany. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.