[News] Palestine Bleeds: Execution of Autistic Man is Not an Exception but the Norm

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://qudsnen.co/palestine-bleeds-execution-of-autistic-man-is-not-an-exception-but-the-norm/
Palestine
Bleeds: Execution of Autistic Man is Not an Exception but the Norm
Ramzy Baroud - June 11, 2020
------------------------------

A 32-year-old man with the mental age of an 8-year-old child was executed
by Israeli soldiers on May 30, while crouching behind his teacher near his
special needs school in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The cold-blooded murder of Iyad Hallaq might not have received much
attention if it were not for the fact that it took place five days
following the similarly heartbreaking murder
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/george-floyd-video-death-arrest-police/>
of a 46-year-old black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis, at the hands of
American police.

The two crimes converge, not only in their repugnancy and the moral
decadence of their perpetrators but also because countless American police
officers have been trained in Israel
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Human-Rights-Abuser-Israel-Trains-US-Police-Report-20200531-0005.html>,
by the very Israeli ‘security forces’ that killed Hallaq. The practice of
killing civilians, with efficiency and callousness, is now a burgeoning
market. Israel is the biggest contributor to this market; the US is the
world’s largest client.

When thousands of people rushed
<https://www.972mag.com/police-violence-iyad-hallak-george-floyd/> to the
streets in Palestine, including hundreds of Palestinian and Israeli Jewish
activists in Jerusalem, chanting “Justice for Iyad, justice for George”,
their cry for justice was a spontaneous and heartfelt reaction to injustice
so great, so blatant.

Hallaq’s story might appear particularly unique, as the ‘suspected
terrorist’ was killed while merely walking in King Faisal Street in
Jerusalem, on his way to take out the trash
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/new-video-reveals-moments-before-murder-of-autistic-palestinian-man/>.
He was afraid of soldiers and terrified of blood.

“He was also afraid of the armed police officers who stood along the route
to the special needs center he went to, where he participated in a
vocational training program,” the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-he-s-disabled-the-aide-yelled-i-m-with-her-eyad-cried-the-cop-still-shot-him-1.8896746?fbclid=IwAR3tPZpyhBvwj5tXaSRBI1zpB_ixb4qavTMcw86y2rtHTntPWMoDIKwwTeg>
.

Hallaq’s many fears, which may have appeared exaggerated by his family,
turned out to be true. Even an autistic person in Palestine is not safe
from the vengeance of soldiers.

But Iyad Hallaq did not need to die for Israel to maintain its pathological
sense of ‘security’. The fact that he was already shot and wounded, and
found bleeding in a roofless garbage room in Jerusalem’s Old City, was not
enough to spare him that horrific fate. The fact that the man screamed in
agony while hiding behind his caregiver, who pleaded with the soldiers,
begging them to stop puncturing his already bleeding body with more
bullets, was also not enough.

Still, the soldiers stepped forward, and from a very close range, fired
three bullets into Hallaq’s midsection as he lay wounded on his back.
Instantly, the young man, the ‘apple of the eyes of his parents’, ceased
breathing.

“He was our mother’s love, her entire life,” Iyad’s sister, Diana said
<https://www.972mag.com/iyad-al-hallaq-family/>in an interview with +972
magazine., adding: “She would hold his hand like he was a baby, and he
would walk with her to the market, or the mosque or the clothing store. He
was like her shadow. She worried about him and whether other kids would
bother or hurt him.”

Caught off guard by the grisly nature of the murder and the mental state of
the victim, Israel’s spin doctors moved quickly to contain the damage,
initially spreading lies
<https://qudsnen.co/new-video-reveals-how-iyad-hallaq-was-killed-by-israeli-police/>
that Hallaq was carrying a toy gun at the time of the shooting, then
backing off, promising
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Probe-on-Shooting-of-Disabled-Palestinian-Family-Not-Optimistic-20200603-0014.html>
an investigation.

But what is there to investigate? In recent years, the Israeli army has
upgraded its code of conduct, adopting a shoot-to-kill
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/02/israel/palestine-some-officials-backing-shoot-kill>
policy of any Palestinian they suspect of attempting to harm Israeli
occupation soldiers, even when the alleged Palestinian ‘attacker’ is no
longer posing a threat.

In the case of Gaza, where protesters are separated from Israeli snipers by
barbed wire and nearly a mile-long empty space, the Israeli military issued
orders
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/shoot-protesters-while-they-rest-israels-new-rules>,
as of June 2019, to shoot and kill ‘key instigators’ of the mass protests
even while ‘at rest’. Hundreds of people have been killed in Gaza’s Great
March of Return in this way, and the ‘key instigators’ included medics,
journalists, young boys, and girls.

Indeed, the killing of Palestinian civilians is a regular occurrence. It is
the devastating routine with which Palestinians have been forced to
co-exist for many years and for which Israel was never ever held
accountable.

Only one day before Hallaq was murdered, Fadi Samara Qaad, 37, was killed
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-soldiers-kill-palestinian-man-west-bank>
by Israeli occupation soldiers while driving his car near the Palestinian
village of Nabi Saleh, west of Ramallah.

The Israeli military immediately claimed that Qaad “tried to ram his car
into a group of soldiers” before they opened fire, killing him on the spot.

This is the go-to Israeli military pretense that is often offered when a
Palestinian driver is shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. Otherwise, the
Palestinian victim, whether a man, a woman, or a child, is often accused of
carrying a ‘sharp object’.

Hallaq’s mental disability might have spared him, in the eyes of some, from
being that archetypical ‘terrorist’, although the Israeli army immediately
raided his house, looking for ‘evidence’ that would implicate him and be
useful in their sinister propaganda.

In the case of Qaad, a Palestinian worker, on his way to join his wife
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israeli-army-reports-attempted-west-bank-car-ramming-attack-palestinian-driver-shot-1.8881555>
in a nearby town to celebrate the Muslim Eid holiday, the Israeli army
statement suffices, no questions asked.

This is the same stifling logic that has prevailed in Palestine for so many
years, and counting. Children are killed
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2farchive%2fpolitics%2f2000%2f12%2f11%2fgaza-gains-a-martyr-parents-lose-a-son%2f6e0ee67b-0b33-4b60-a857-bc2986ac4d21%2f>
for throwing stones at men with guns, who have invaded their homes and
villages; pregnant women
<https://www.thenational.ae/world/israeli-forces-kill-pregnant-palestinian-woman-and-brother-1.144431>
are gunned down at Israeli army checkpoints; men with amputated legs
<https://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2018/05/14/double-amputee-gazan-killed-by-israeli-forces-in-gaza-protests>
on wheelchairs shot by snipers while protesting and demanding their freedom.

All of this is taking place in the complete absence of any promising
political horizon. Even the protracted and ultimately useless ‘peace
process’ has been halted
<https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-palestinian-president-abbas-declares-end-to-agreements-with-israel-u-s-1.8858724>
in favor of greater American backing of Israel and of the Israeli
government’s mad rush to expand illegal Jewish settlements.

To secure his colonial accomplishments – read: land theft – Israel’s Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is about to reveal the crown jewel of his
legacy, as he prepares for the expansion of Israel’s borders through the
annexation <https://www.arabnews.com/node/1555271> of yet more Palestinian
land.

Inspired by the common struggle that ties them with their African-American
brethren, Palestinians are now left only with their cries for justice:
Palestinian lives matter, hoping, for once, the world may hear and echo
their screams and, perhaps, do something.
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