Damaged car; Photo credit: Courtesy of photographer
Wednesday, March 25, 2020, 11:26 The Corona virus hasn’t stopped terror attacks. On Saturday, March 21, after Shabbat, a couple driving on Route 65 through Wadi Ara were barraged by rocks. The incident is currently classified as criminal. Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher is representing the driver in recognizing his rights as a victim of a nationalistically motivated attack.
Bleicher sent a letter to the Iron Police describing the incident and demanding that they investigate the incident as nationalistically motivated: K. and his girlfriend, both students in their 20s from Emek Yisrael, were driving on Route 65 through Wadi Ara last week after Shabbat. Close to midnight, their car was barraged with rocks and damaged. “Terrified, my client and his girlfriend continued driving until they reached your police station, where they spoke to policemen. My client gave testimony about the incident, and understood from statements by the policemen that additional vehicles had been similarly barraged with rocks.”
Three days later, K. phoned the Iron Police Station to ask for authorization [that he was a victim of a nationalistically motivated attack] for the Tax Authority so that he could be reimbursed for the expense of repairing his car “and was shocked when he was told by an investigator at your station that the incident was not nationalistically motivated but rather criminal, and therefore he is not entitled to authorization for the Tax Authority.”
Bleicher also mentioned in the letter that, “To the best of my client’s knowledge, he has never been involved with any criminal incident and has never been in contact with any person from the criminal underground who would constitute cause for his car to be barraged with rocks. There is no option other than to presume that his car was barraged due to his being a Jew who drove near an area populated by members of a minority group.”
Bleicher stressed that, “Throwing rocks at a moving vehicle on a highway is no less than attempted murder,” and asked the Iron Police to handle the incident appropriately, to make every effort to apprehend suspects and to issue K. the requested authorization for the Tax Authority.
K. expressed his opinion about the conduct of the police: “We feel that the police are disregarding their responsibility and by default every incident is criminal, and not nationalistically motivated, because a nationalistically motivated incident must be proven, and a criminal incident does not need to be. Additionally, despite the fact that the police had received a report earlier about rock throwing in that area, no-one sent a police car to the site, and thus additional cars, including ours, were damaged.
“Since the incident we have been afraid to drive through Wadi Ara, even though it is on the main route from the central region [of Israel], where we study, to our home in Emek Yizrael.”
Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, who is representing K.: “Islamic terror has no limits and there is no Green Line. Throwing rocks at a moving vehicle on a highway constitutes first degree attempted murder. The first step to eradicating terror is recognizing its existence. The rock-throwing attack on these Israelis was carried out because they are Jews and in order to undermine the right of a Jewish State to exist. We demand complete recognition as victims of terror and decisive eradication of terror, also when attacks are carried out by individuals with the right to vote in elections for the Knesset.”