Even in as violent and divided a city as Jerusalem, the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir in July 2014 was a dark day. The 16-year-old was kidnapped, beaten, doused with gasoline and burned alive in a forest outside the city by Israeli right-wing zealots, who later admitted they had picked the teenager at random in a revenge attack for the murder of three Israelis teens. Two Israeli minors were convicted for their roles in the death of Abu Khdeir and are serving sentences of more than 20 years. And now the ringleader of that horrific murder has been sentenced to life in prison.
Yosef Haim Ben-David’s sentence was delayed because he had pleaded insanity. It is just about the only defense one can use to rationalize such an indefensible crime. Fortunately, it didn’t work. The judges were having none of it. The court found the 30-year-old was responsible for his actions. At the time Ben-David committed the crime, he was not psychotic, fully understood the facts, was responsible for his actions, had no difficulty in understanding reality and had the capacity to prevent the crime. It was a barbaric act, motivated by revenge, plain and simple. It could be argued, though, revenge for whom? The family of the Israeli teens said that they didn’t want revenge.
The separate killings contributed to soaring tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. It was feared that a third Intifada would erupt. The Intifada never came but a war did, one which killed 2,205 Palestinians in 50 days, including at least 1,483 civilians of whom 521 were children and 283 women.
Much has been written about the murder of Abu Khdeir. He was murdered but many Palestinians have been murdered. He was young but many, many Palestinian children have been killed and are being killed. Frankly, it’s a brutality that has come to be expected. So, what was different about Abu Khdeir’s death?
It was no ordinary crime. Abu Khdeir was waiting for friends outside a mosque during morning prayers when he was abducted. Surveillance footage showed him being dragged into a car that drove into a forest. His attackers hit him on the head with a metal bar. An autopsy showed he had soot in his lungs, indicating he had been burned alive after being forced to swallow petrol by his attackers. It was a death that cannot be comprehended.
One of the saddest things about Mohamed’s death is that while it shocked Palestine and the world, that shock never translated into action. True, his killers are now behind bars, but a year-and-a-half on and nothing has changed. If anything, support for the radical Jewish right that in its extremities carries out such attacks appears to be growing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may appear to be trying to stem its growth with arrests of Israeli zealots in recent months. But the West Bank remains a tinderbox, with dozens of Palestinians killed while protesting the Israeli occupation. Gaza remains in ruins, with much of its infrastructure destroyed. A peace deal appears as remote now as when negotiations collapsed in April 2014, if not more so.
Even if there is some consolation that his killer will never again see the outside of a prison cell, the world should not forget Mohammed Abu Khdeir. The wounds opened that night in Jerusalem will remain raw. His murder and its aftermath should be a reminder that the occupation has produced these sorts of shocking, indescribable murders and murderers. We owe this to Mohammed and to his memory, his parents and all the other victims and families caught up in the violence that exploded in that sweltering summer of 2014 and continues to this day.
