'I kicked the Arab, I stepped on his head'

By Uri Blau Haaretz

Tags: violence, Arabs, Jerusalem

Dozens of teenage boys from Jerusalem received the same ICQ message: "We're putting an end to all the Arabs who hang out in 'Pisga' [Pisgat Ze'ev] and the mall, whistle at the girls, curse, threaten little kids. Anyone who is Jewish and wants to put an end to all that should be at Burger Ranch at 10 P.M., and we'll finally show them they can't hang in our area anymore. Anyone who is willing to do that and has Jewish blood should add his name to this message."

It would have been difficult to choose a more cynical date on which to send out such a message: Wednesday, April 30, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Dozens of boys arrived at the meeting place in the Pisgat Ze'ev shopping mall. They streamed in from all parts of the capital, some on foot, some by bus and some driven in by parents. Equipped with knives, sticks and clubs, they all had one purpose: to do harm to Arabs for being Arabs.

At the entrance, the gang encountered two boys from the Shuafat refugee camp, who had come to shop for clothes and didn't know the mall had closed early for Holocaust Day. The day's end saw the two battered, bleeding and stabbed, and at Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Karem.
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A few days ago, an indictment was submitted to the Jerusalem District Court against 11 of the attackers - teenage boys aged 15-19. Their testimony indicates the attack was perpetrated in a society in which violence against Arabs is seen as a legitimate and necessary means by which to restore Jewish hegemony to the neighborhood.

"I study in Pisgat Ze'ev at the Teddy Kollek School," Rafael (his and all the other teens' names have been changed), 15, told police. "Last Tuesday began as an ordinary day. School. I returned from gym and on my way to class, I overheard some guys saying that tomorrow we would be meeting in the mall to fight the Arabs. I went home and like every day, logged on to the computer and connected to ICQ ... After I talked with some people for half an hour, they sent me a message that tomorrow, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, we would meet at 10 P.M. to fight the Arabs who whistle at the girls and harass little kids. I sent the message to one person."

Another teen, Yaron, said in his testimony: "I received a message on ICQ on the Thursday before ... The day came and at 8:30 P.M. I went to my barber in Pisgat Ze'ev, Kobi Ben Haim, for a haircut. After Kobi finished cutting my hair he said, 'Yalla, in another hour and a half we'll screw the Arabs.'"

Ill-fated day

At the same time, in the Abu Kamal home in Shuafat in northern Jerusalem, 18-year-old Ahmed was preparing to go out. "He told me he wanted to buy clothes," said his father Jemal. "I heard that in Pisgat Ze'ev there's a mall, that it's like Jaffa Road, inexpensive. I said to him, 'Great, go, why not?'"

Ahmed is the second of 12 children. "He saw that I was having a tough time and that he had to help me, and since then he's been working as a janitor in the Shaare Zedek Medical Center. My child is calm, none of us has a police record. We have Jewish and Arab friends, we have nothing against anyone and people in the village respect us."

Toward evening, Ahmed left his house and when he arrived at Pisgat Ze'ev he met another teenager from the refugee camp, 16-year-old Walid. "The little Arab," as the Jewish boys described him during their interrogation, used to walk around the area looking for jobs. When he met Ahmed that evening they decided to continue together to the mall.

In his testimony to the police, Walid said: "We were on the way to the mall to buy clothes. We arrived at about 7 P.M. When we wanted to go inside, the guard told us that everything was closed and only the clinic was open. We left the mall, entered the nearby gas station, bought food and sat in the park near the mall until 9 P.M. We were planning to return home, and on the way back we saw a big crowd near the mall."

When Ahmed and Walid sat down to eat, the Jewish boys began to gather near the local Burger's Bar restaurant. Rafael told police: "In the evening I took a knife from my room. I put the knife in my pocket and went out into the street."

What did you know was about to happen?

Rafael: "A fight with Arabs ... I wanted to see what was happening there."

Why did you come with a knife?

"I go everywhere with a knife. If someone wants to buy it, I'll have it to give to him ... The knife is always with me and it doesn't make any difference if there's a violent activity or not. It was with me from the morning."

You go to school with a knife, too?

"Yes. Always one."

Rafael arrived at the meeting point with his friend Shlomi, 15. "Like a retard, I argued with him for about an hour to give me the knife. In the end I took the knife ... Its handle is the size of three fingers, even less. One of those stupid little ones, just a knife," he said in his interrogation.

The group waited for a long time at the spot, but nothing happened. "We waited for about two hours, everyone with wooden boards, bats, not a single Arab passed by," said Shlomi.

At this point, the boys decided to move to a more strategic location, opposite the entrance to the mall. Unfortunately for the two friends from Shuafat, they had to pass the mall on the way back home. "When we passed by," Walid said in his testimony, "a guy came over to us and told us to come over to him. He called his friend, pointed to me and said to him, 'Is this the guy that made trouble?' His friend said no."

According to the police, the two young men who spoke to them were Liran Asraf, 18, and another boy, Shaul, 15. Shaul told police: "We waited for about 15-20 minutes and two Arabs arrived. I approached the big Arab and spoke to him, asked whether he was hitting on the girls. And then I threw a lit cigarette between the shoulder and neck of the big Arab. He looked at me, wanted to kill me. His eyes popped out and then he kept looking, and suddenly all the kids attacked the little one. They simply pushed him against the railing and stepped on him."

Why did you throw the lit cigarette at the Arab?

Shaul: "Because he hit on the girls. Because the Arabs hit on the girls."

Did he start fighting with anyone?

"No. The fact is, the first time I saw those Arabs was at the mall."

Who was with you and what did each one do?

"I'm asking you not to show them I'm talking about them, because afterward they'll call me an informer. What I saw was feet and jumping. The ones who were there were Rafael and his brother Naor. Yaron, who had a stick, hit him between the ribs or the head, I don't remember exactly. Uzi jumped on his body. I more or less saw that they all jumped, kicked, stepped on him, on the Arab. The kid was a trampoline and punching bag. That's it. I swear to you that I cried a little on the side. And then the police came and all of them ran away like ants. If the police hadn't come after five minutes, that boy would have been done for. I came back after three or four minutes to see what was happening with him and I heard him shouting 'Mother, Mother.'"

What happened with the big Arab?

"I didn't look at the big one. Only at the little one because there were about 80 kids there."

"I saw that everyone was beating the little one severely," said Shlomi in his interrogation. "I swear to you I don't know how he survived it. He's 17, but he comes up to my stomach. The way he was pushed against the railing and the blows he got, I don't know how the boy is alive. Anyone who tells you that he didn't do anything is a liar."

Walid only remembers that "a gang of kids, more than 80, pounced on us and they had clubs and knives in their hands and they attacked us. All I remember now is that I passed out and woke up in the hospital."

While the boys were beating Walid like a punching bag, Ahmed was stabbed in the back. According to the indictment, those who stabbed him were Naor and his brother Rafael, who took the knife from his friend Shlomi.

"I walked toward the mall," Ahmed told Haaretz. "But I didn't go inside, I passed by the entrance to the plaza and there was a large group of guys there, they were just standing there and I walked among them at the side of the road. I heard them talking among themselves and they said something like, 'Is it them? Is it them?' and then someone stabbed me in the back with a knife, threw me down and continued to beat me. One guy bit my ear. I don't know how I managed to get up, but I got up and ran away. They chased me and threw stones. I continued to run and started to lose my breath because of the injury and the running, until I couldn't go on."