Photographers are accessories to attempted murder

An Arab teenager smashes the window of Zahava Weiss' car

An Arab teenager smashes the window of Zahava Weiss' car

I recently wrote about the continuing (for about 100 years) Palestinian Arab pogrom against Jews in the land of Israel. They are still doing it:

A teacher was on her way home to the West Bank settlement of Karmei Tzur on Tuesday when she found herself the target of a rock salvo that smashed her windshield.

Zehava Weiss, the driver, came out unscathed from an incident that has become a daily experience for residents in the region. An AFP photographer who was standing nearby captured the instance when a Palestinian boy hurled a boulder at her car.

To me it looks more like a brick. The item continues,

According to the police, which collaborates with the IDF on the issue, 368 Palestinians were arrested in 2011 for throwing stones, and 38 were arrested for hurling Molotov cocktails. Over 100 suspects in similar cases were arrested in January and February of this year.

And these were the ones that got arrested! How many incidents like this one were there when no one was arrested?

Here, courtesy of Yisrael Medad, is a little bit of Weiss’s testimony about the incident. Pay attention to her comments about the photographers:

When I came close to the gas station at Bet-Omar (a location that usually requires a driver’s attention due to wrongly parked taxis, bypassing and pulling out into the highway in a careless manner), I observed a man running across the road from right to left.  I first thought that this was a soldier with a rifle and I slowed down to grasp what was happening.  I then noticed dozens of people, old, young and teenagers, congregating on my right.  It then became apparent that the “soldier with a rifle” was actually a photographer with a camera.  He was seeking a better picture angle to snap away at what was about to happen.  On my left were at least two other photographers, waiting for the action.  I should emphasize that I was not the first victim and other cars had already been stoned and so these press photographers were well aware what was happening and was about to happen to me.  None of them, it seems, thought to call for assistance from the police or IDF none of whom were present.

Knowing I had no choice but to continue and surely not stop for otherwise, if I had slowed down, I would have been trapped and blocked off, the only thing in my mind was to proceed home and not get caught at that crossing.  It was difficult to pass through as the rocks came from a distance of just a few feet from the car, ‘zero-range’ as we say.  The rioters clearly could see that the car contained two young females, defenseless.  We were struck by many rocks, my view was blocked by the cracked glass and I simply concentrated on getting out of there as quickly as I could.  At the time, as well as at this moment of writing, I did not fully grasp the danger of our situation.

It was only when I arrived home that I realized the entire front of the car was covered with shattered glass particles including me, the infant seat, the back seat, everything.  There was also damage caused to the sides of the car.  At least eight large rocks and blocks had hit my car.  I learned the rock-throwing continued for a good few minutes afterwards with the resulting damage to other vehicles as well as psychological damage to the drivers and passengers.

There is a name for the crime that these ‘children’ perpetrated, and it is ‘attempted murder’. Sometimes it is not just an attempt and the damage is not just psychological.

And there is also a name for the photographers, who participate as accessories in these ambushes, encourage them, and profit from them: scumbags.

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4 Responses to “Photographers are accessories to attempted murder”

  1. joelsk44039 says:

    You refer to Karmei Tzur as a “West Bank settlement.” This is incorrect. It is a “West Bank community.”

    And you refer to photographers who participate in these ambushes as “scumbags.” This, too, is incorrect. They are accessories to the crime of “assault” and, as such, are culpable under Israeli law and should be charged and either punished or expelled from the country.

  2. Vic Rosenthal says:

    First, the use of the word ‘settlement’ was in a quotation from a news account.

    Second, I mentioned that the photographers were accessories. They are also scumbags.

  3. Salubrius says:

    Was there a possibility of using your car as a weapon in self defense? Run the rock throwers, and maybe the scumbags down.

  4. Shalom Freedman says:

    This report should be sent immediately to NYTimes Israel correspondent Isabel Kershner. Exactly a week ago she published a one- sided unfair attack on the Israeli detention of a young man who had been involved in the organizing of stone-throwings against Israeli vehicles. She made it seem as if the detention was wholly unjustified, without any real justification, just an arbitrary action of a cruel ‘occupier’. The fact that these stonings are murderous attacks which have caused many deaths and serious injuries was not in her report.