Sunday, September 02, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
Ma'an has an article with the title “Dangerous precedent – the occupation interferes in tribal customs in Jerusalem.”
This "dangerous precedent" is that Israeli police in East Jerusalem wanted to stop a family from murdering a member of another family.
Two prominent and bloodthirsty Arab families, the Abu Tirs and the Amiras, have a feud. A man from one of the families killed a woman from the other family. As it is customary in such cases, there were negotiations between the families, conducted by respected noble elders from Jerusalem, in order to avoid revenge killings, which would bring more bloodshed.
They eventually reached an agreement. The agreement seemed to include a sentence that says that it is OK to kill the murderer - apparently the agreement allowed the victim’s family to avenge by killing only the killer, and not other members of his family, or something like that.
The Israeli police brought some people from both families and also some of the arbiters in for questioning, and eventually forced them to drop this one sentence from the agreement. A tape from the questioning was leaked, and in the tape some of the elders can be heard reading an announcement in both Hebrew and Arabic, in which they cancel that part of the agreement.
Many people are angry that Israel dared to enforce its laws in East Jerusalem.
One prominent sheikh who was interviewed said that after Trump’s decision (about Jerusalem), the occupation has begun to stick its nose in everything.
The end of the Ma'an article says that this sheikh named Salameh denounced Israel's "detention" of the family members, "most of them elderly and honored tribal figures known for their integrity and keenness to safeguard the security of the community and maintain its safety and civil peace."
Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas did exactly the same thing to end a family feud near Jenin where a married couple was killed recently, and forced the parties to sign an agreement allowing the murderer to go to PA prison. No one is saying anything bad about him in that article.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
