No sympathy from the court

Nurit Peled Elhanan, Ma'an
Salwa and Bassam Aramin are not Jews and they are not Israelis. They live under a cruel occupation and they have experienced all it has to offer: exile, imprisonment and the killing of their small daughter Abir by a rubber bullet that was allegedly fired from the rifle of a Border Guard soldier who was sitting in an armored jeep and thrust the barrel of his rifle through the opening that was allegedly designed for that purpose and allegedly aimed and fired at the head of the girl who was standing beside her sister at a kiosk, allegedly buying candy during the break between the first class and the second.

The projectile was removed from under the girl’s body and transferred to the authorities. The eyewitnesses, as well as the Border Guard soldiers, testified that there was no alleged danger to their lives and that the shooting was done – if it was done – in contravention of instructions.

Two pathologists testified that it was probable that the fracture in Abir’s little skull could have been caused by a rubber bullet. The attending physician at the Hadassah Hospital said that it was not a live bullet. The video of the reconstruction of the incident was not given to the defense counsel or to the court, because the soldiers who allegedly carried out the shooting, that is, who thrust the barrel of the rifle through the opening that had been made especially for that purpose, aimed and fired at the head of the girl Abir, were featured in the recording.

The Counsel for the State, stammering, unprepared and unkempt, stood like a platoon commander in charge of new recruits with her back to the public and refuted the allegations: “So they found a projectile.” “So what?” “Who knows how long it had been lying there?” “So people gave testimony, so what?” “They (those Arabs) can say anything, does that make it testimony?” “So nobody was throwing stones at that spot, so what?” “On a nearby street stones were thrown.” “If you were in my place,” she laughingly says to Michael Sfard, Aramin's attorney, “you would have made morsels of them by now.”

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