Five months have passed since the arson attack against the Palestinian Dawabsha family – the mother, father and the 18-month-old son - who were burnt to death after their house in the village of Duma in the occupied West Bank was firebombed by Jewish extremists.
Even though the attack led to widespread condemnation globally as well as by Israelis and Palestinians, and even though the US and the UN stepped into the case, reminding Israel of the importance of bringing the perpetrators to justice, no one has been charged with the killings.
Israeli news media reports in recent days have suggested a breakthrough in the case but a gag order has prevented details from being published. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has said that security services know the identity of the Duma attackers, but lack the evidence to issue any charges. How is it that the authorities know who they are but have no evidence? The assailants cannot be arrested or will not be arrested? And what will be the ultimate fate of the criminals in a court ruling?
Had the opposite happened, had an Israeli family been burnt to death by Palestinian arsonists, Duma would have been leveled to the ground by Israeli troops – then the search for the perpetrators would have begun. First, though, Duma would have been gutted.
Months have gone by without any indictments by Israel for the murders. Progress is slow and the Israeli authorities are moving at a snail’s pace to bring the perpetrators of this terrible crime to justice. The disparity between this response and the usually aggressive manhunts and swift arrests of Palestinians by Israeli forces has only enhanced the sense of insult.
The Duma case fits a consistent pattern of an Israeli failure to prosecute nationalist crimes against Palestinians – with only one in 50 such cases ever ending in a conviction. Among about 1,000 such cases over the last 10 years, the indictment rate is seven percent and the conviction rate is two percent.
These failures are a constant motivator toward violence. The lack of arrests around the case and many others is among the causes for the wave of Palestinian riots, stabbings and shootings that began in October.
Against this backdrop, it will be interesting to see what will happen to the two Jewish Israeli teens who last week were convicted of the burning to death of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir in July last year. Abu Khdeir was abducted, beaten on the head and burned alive after the killings of three Israeli teens a week earlier. His death sparked weeks of angry protests by Palestinians outraged by the revenge killing. The court will convene in January to discuss punishment for the Israeli teenagers.
What happened to Abu Khdeir and the Dawabsha family is part of a campaign of terror launched by vigilante Israelis, followed by Israel’s failure to prosecute the cases, fanning a sense of insult and inequality before the law. Israeli authorities either do not want or do not know how to solve these cases because they never really tried, and the perpetrators of the crimes feel they have impunity. The Shin Bet has less success in interrogations with Jewish extremists compared with Palestinians because it must maintain a higher standard of civil rights and civil liberties with the former.
Israel is meting out unequal justice. There is leniency for Israeli criminals as well as Israeli officers charged with wrongdoing against Palestinians and Israel is failing to bring these people to justice.
