Please click here for a list of posts relating to cases in which Honenu provided legal counsel to victims of antisemitic attacks in Jerusalem.
Sunday, July 28, 2024, 9:09 Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher wrote a letter to the Appeals Department of the State Attorney’s office demanding that they order the reopening of an assault case and indict three Arabs who attacked a Jewish youth two years ago.
Attorney Bleicher described the attack in his letter: “The appellee, a 15-year-old youth, obviously Jewish, was riding an electric bicycle in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem. It is possible that he, unknowingly, slightly delayed a car in which several Arabs were traveling. In reaction, the occupants of the car chased the appellee in an attempt to injure him or knock him off his bicycle. The appellee noticed that the car was following him at high speed and almost ran him over. He was forced to increase his speed to avoid being injured. When the appellee turned right, he was forced to slow down, the car sped after him, and closed in on him. Then the driver blocked his path by turning the car slightly to the left. The appellee felt threatened and endangered when the car trapped him.
“At this point, the driver reached his hand out of the window and hit the appellee, who pushed the driver’s hand away in an upwards motion, and then returned his hand to the handlebar to stabilize himself. Before the appellee could continue, he saw that the driver was attempting to open the car door in order to get out. The appellee, who felt trapped and endangered, pushed the door back and tried to prevent the driver from getting out and attacking him. At this point, the appellee was hit again and pushed backward, almost falling off his bicycle. As this was happening, the driver’s brother got out of the car and rushed at the appellee, forcibly pushed him backwards, and slammed him and his bicycle to the ground. Then [the brother] punched his head hard while he was still sprawled on the road.” The Arabs then attempted to steal the bicycle.
The attacked cyclist; Video credit: Free use
The youth filed a complaint with the police, who detained the attackers, interrogated them over several days, and eventually extracted confessions from them. However, the Police Prosecution Department closed the case despite video documentation and other evidence of the incident.
In his appeal, Attorney Bleicher underscored false testimonies that the attackers gave under police interrogation and the fact that eventually they admitted that they had attacked the youth completely unjustifiably only as a matter of defending their “honor”. He also presented a video clip of the attack and cited how the Arabs attacked passers-by who came to the aid of the youth and threw rocks at nearby stores. One of the Arabs took an iron rod out of the car, ran toward one of the passers-by, and beat him.
Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher commented on the case: “Examination of the investigative material and the video clips paints a very disturbing picture. A number of violent Arabs in a car chased a Jewish cyclist and brutally attacked him for, in their opinion, insulting their ‘honor’. As good citizens came to his aid, they attacked them and other passers-by with iron rods and rocks. The attackers acted as if they had the right to riot in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood and injure innocent citizens without any repercussions. The police appropriately detained the attackers and interrogated them over several days. They changed their testimonies from interrogation to interrogation and in the end were forced to confess that their only motive was to defend their ‘honor’. To our shock, the Police Prosecution Department closed the case despite the serious violations.
“Closing the case sends a dangerous message to potential attackers to the detriment of public security. Moreover, from our experience, it is possible that the case was closed because the attackers filed a complaint with the police demanding to know why the Jews who helped the victim were not detained. The time has come for an unequivocal statement. Jews have the right to defend themselves and their fellow Jews from violent attackers. The prosecution’s rationale that citizens should expect to be assaulted without any intervention is a dangerous conception that could lead to the murder of Jews. The Jews who intervened should be praised for their assistance. Attempts to equate a brawl between two fighters with an attack on an innocent citizen such as in this case are catastrophic and should be eradicated. We demand that the authorities prosecute the attackers to the full extent of the law and stop discouraging Jews from defending themselves.”