Nationalistic motivation erroneously attributed to detainees

Monday, October 20, 2014 14:31 On the morning of Monday, October 20 an indictment was filed at the Jerusalem District Court against three Jewish brothers who are suspected of racially motivated assault after an altercation broke out between them and Arab cleaners one week previously. Honenu notes that, “When Jews are the suspects suddenly racism is an issue.”
According to the indictment following a verbal clash between two of the brothers and the Arabs, who were working in the industrial zone of Makor Baruch, a Jerusalem neighborhood, the two brothers began to assault the Arabs and called the third brother to assist them. The brothers are also accused of chasing the Arabs into a nearby store where they beat one of them and damaged the door to the bathroom in which he was hiding.
The three brothers have been accused of racially motivated assault and damaging property. Their remand has been extended until Thursday, October 23 in order to facilitate examining the evidence in the case.
Honenu’s legal staff, who are representing the brothers, have been following the incidents of recent months and have noticed that in instances of Arabs suspected of assaulting Jews a nationalistic motivation was stated in the indictment infrequently whereas in instances of Jews suspected of assaulting Arabs, a nationalistic motivation was immediately attributed to the incident. For example in the case of an Arab smashing the head of a Jewish youth near the Dung Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on Tuesday, June 3 the assailant was not charged with a nationalistically motivated crime.
“Jerusalem has been a hot spot for a long time due to the serious crimes against public order committed by Arabs,” said Honenu attorney Adi Kedar, who is representing the three brothers. “However the Attorney General’s office continues to attempt to skew statistics by artificially and futilely bringing in a nationalistic motivation in indictments against Jews. The incident was and remains an altercation which has no connection to the motivation claimed.”