Real Life in Israel: Arabs attacked you? Don’t go to the police! by Kalman Liebskind

Hat tip: Honenu

Arabs attacked you? Don’t go to the police!
by Kalman Liebskind

Below is an exact translation of his article (March 28, ’11)

I am writing this while still in a tremendous rage. I am furious because until a few hours ago I believed that the law enforcement authorities were the recommended address for someone attacked by Arab rioters in the center of our country. But that’s over now. I’ll never believe it again.

Stone throwing, even though it is liable to cause injury, is generally regarded in a forgiving way. A stone that does not send its victim to the intensive care unit will never get into the news. Only those who are intrepid enough to reach remote Internet websites know that for some time this activity is no longer confined to Judea and Samaria. Soldiers are beaten up by Arabs in Haifa, Jews are stoned in the Negev, in Yaffo, and in Galilee. Hamas flags are flown in Ramlah. This week, believe it or not, this Intifada reached the door of my home.

Just to make things clear, I live in Moshav Gimzu, in spitting distance of Ramlah and Lod, in the middle of the Jerusalem – Tel Aviv highway, as deep as you can get within the green line. On Monday evening we returned with our children from a trip to the Judean hills. Since we travelled in two cars for the trip, we planned to go via our home, leave one vehicle, and then go to eat something outdoors with the children.

On the entry road to the moshav we heard the first boom. Ilana, my wife, who was following me with some of the children, took a direct hit by a stone in the windshield. The stone hit the glass, which by a miracle did not shatter, only about 16 inches from my son’s head. When my wife and the children in a panic told me what had happened to them, I couldn’t believe it. Stones? Where we live? A hit by an asteroid seemed more likely than stones being thrown 300 yards from our home.

While the children were busy describing the event with great emotion, and we speculated about the origin of the stone, we moved them to my car and left the moshav again. The moment we reached the place of the first attack we heard a second boom. This time the stone hit the front wing, not far from Ilana’s window. We now also saw the attacker, a youth aged about 18, who aimed at us from not more than 10 yards away. After he saw the hit he ran off, accompanied by someone else, to the woody and dark area.

Only afterwards did we learn that two other women had received direct hits before us. A few moments later, after I called the police (who took more than 40 minutes to arrive), we and a few neighbors went to the woods to try and find the stone throwers. We were met by an astounding sight.

From a distance of a few hundred yards from the road, in the middle of the area, under a large tree, about twenty Arab youths from Lod, probably in the last grades in high school, sat around a camp fire with a few bearded teachers or instructors who wore galabiyahs and skull caps, matching the latest Islamic fashion.

“If we want to we will also burn down all of Gimzu”, one of the bearded Arabs, full of self confidence, threatened the first moshavniks to arrive. They told the police that they had left a Koran lesson in the mosque in Lod and gone to make a barbecue.

The two policemen who had arrived behaved as though they had been called about a car parked in a permitted place. When one of the residents of the moshav related that one of the leaders of the group from Lod had threatened him they refused to record the complaint or even to take down details. When we requested that they record the graffiti in Arabic sprayed on the trees, they told us not to tell them what to do. At the end of the incident they arrested the Arab youth that we identified. No-one else from his group, including the adults, was questioned there.

I am forced to admit that two weeks after the terrorist attack in Itamar I feel a little uncomfortable in saying here that my daughters, who were twice on the receiving end of stones within ten minutes, refused to go to sleep unless we slept with them in the bedroom. Anyway, that’s the way it happened. In the middle of the country, whatever way you look at it.

But this is only the beginning of the real story. Yesterday morning I received a phone call from the police. A detective asked me to come to complete the investigation, at the request of the State Attorney’s department. He led me to believe that we were talking of a few missing details in my complaint, on the way to submitting an indictment against the stone thrower.

A quarter of an hour later, when I sat opposite him, he dropped the bomb. “I am informing you that you are suspected of committing the offence of threatening with a weapon. You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be used in evidence against you.” I thought I hadn’t heard him properly.

“Me? Threats? With a weapon? Where did you get this nonsense from?” When he explained to me that the Arabs in the group that threw the stones claimed that I threatened them, I remembered that immediately after the incident a policeman friend of mine predicted that this was precisely what would happen.

“Every time they catch them doing something they immediately submit a counter complaint”, he warned me. “You’ll find yourself in an investigation.” At that time I laughed at him, but I no longer do so. “After all, on the evening of the incident the police were there at the scene, after I myself called them”, I argued with the detective. “Why did no Arab claim at that time that I threatened him? When did they remember this?”

I learned from the detective that the Arabs saw me in the police station, when I arrived at night, at the end of the incident, to give a statement, and complained that one of the people who complained about them was the real offender. Bingo! We have a counter complaint. Now we are playing a two-sided game. There are no longer an attacker and a victim.

I suggested that the detective invite at least 50 members of the moshav who were present on that same evening to come and testify. “Ask them if any of them saw me approach the Arabs, threaten them or even speak to them.” “That’s worthless”, replied the policeman. “Your friends from the moshav are interested parties”. “And the Arabs who threw stones at me and whom I complained against aren’t interested parties?” I asked him, furious.

After an hour of questioning, next to a detainee with chains on his legs, the police measured my height, took my fingerprints and photographed me from every direction. I was then released on bond.

I left the police station humiliated and having learned painful lessons about a pathetic and tired police force, that encourages citizens not to call on it and not to request its help. A sloppy police force with policemen who only want to finish their shift and go home without problems. If a group of nationalist offenders, who can for a long time stone the cars of innocent Jewish citizens and endanger their lives, can make such a fool of the police, I therefore advise citizens: Try and manage by yourselves. Don’t call the police, they won’t help you. They will interfere, waste your time, give you the runaround, and in the end turn you into criminals.