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<font size="-2" face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theintercept.com/2019/01/25/israeli-campaign-ad-stars-former-soldier-executed-prone-palestinian-suspect/">https://theintercept.com/2019/01/25/israeli-campaign-ad-stars-former-soldier-executed-prone-palestinian-suspect/</a><br>
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<h1 class="Post-title">Israeli Campaign Ad Stars Former Soldier
Lauded for Executing Palestinian Suspect</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Robert Mackey - January 25,
2019<br>
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<p><span><span>Yaron Mazuz, Israel's deputy environment
minister, shares a laugh with Elor Azaria, a
former soldier who killed a prone Palestinian
suspect in 2016.</span> <span>Yaron Mazuz, via
Facebook</span></span><span><span>Yaron Mazuz,
Israel's deputy environment minister, shares a
laugh with Elor Azaria, a former soldier who
killed a prone Palestinian suspect in 2016.</span>
<span>Yaron Mazuz, via Facebook</span></span></p>
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<p><u>Elor Azaria</u>, a former Israeli
Army medic who became a hero to that
nation’s far-right by <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/israeli-rights-group-releases-video-soldier-executing-wounded-palestinian-suspect/">publicly
executing a wounded Palestinian
suspect</a> in the occupied West Bank
in 2016, is the star of a new political
advertising campaign for a deputy
minister in Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s government.</p>
<p>The former soldier, who was convicted
of manslaughter based on <a
href="https://www.btselem.org/video/20160324_soldier_executes_palestinian_attacker_in_hebron">video
evidence of the crime</a>, served just
nine months in jail before being
released last summer. In <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/YaronMazuz/photos/a.1657504661202568/2459418081011218/?type=3&theater">a
poster</a> and <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/YaronMazuz/videos/2250829618531630/">video
message</a> published on Facebook this
week by the deputy environment minister,
Yaron Mazuz, Azaria is seen grinning and
shaking the politician’s hand.</p>
<p>In the video, Mazuz, a member of
Netanyahu’s Likud party, urges
supporters to vote for him in a primary
election next month, so he can be a
candidate in the April general election.</p>
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<p>“I am sitting next to my friend Elor
Azaria, whom we enlisted in our primary
campaign, and with God’s help, together
with him, we will succeed,” Mazuz says
in the video, according to <a
href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Likud-deputy-minister-enlists-Elor-Azaria-in-primary-campaign-578417">a
translation</a> by Lahov Harkov of The
Jerusalem Post.</p>
<p>Mazuz also gave Azaria a paid position
on his campaign, The Post reported, and
called the former soldier’s crime
justified. “We have to support our
soldiers and let them act according to
the threats they face in the
battlefield,” Mazuz told Israel’s
Channel 12 News. “We cannot tie their
hands and neuter them when facing vile
murderers.”</p>
<p>Video recorded by a Palestinian witness
on March 24, 2016, left no doubt that
Azaria did execute the incapacitated
suspect, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, after
the Palestinian had stabbed an Israeli
soldier at a checkpoint in the occupied
city of Hebron. By the time Azaria
arrived at the scene, the Palestinian
had already been shot by another soldier
and was stretched out on the pavement,
unable to move. Azaria was caught on
camera cocking his rifle and firing a
single bullet into the suspected
attacker’s head, killing him.</p>
<p>When Israel’s Army put the young medic
on trial, he was quickly <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2016/04/19/thousands-israelis-rally-support-soldier-executed-wounded-palestinian/">lauded
as a hero</a> by a large swathe of the
Israeli public.</p>
<p>The latest celebration of Azaria
horrified Elizabeth Tsurkov, an Israeli
rights activist, and Khaled Elgindy, a
former adviser to the Palestinian
leadership in the West Bank.</p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en">The horror. The
soldier caught executing a prone
Palestinian assailant in Hebron Elor
Azaria, is now a celebrity used to
recruit votes in the Likud primaries.
The ad for Likud MK Yaron Mazuz reads:
"Elor Azaria has joined me, you join
too!" <a
href="https://t.co/dQBSweO6t2">https://t.co/dQBSweO6t2</a></p>
<p>— Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) <a
href="https://twitter.com/Elizrael/status/1088152227364114432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January
23, 2019</a></p>
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<p>Last July, following his early release
from prison, Azaria was given <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-elor-azaria-receives-hero-s-welcome-at-hebron-shooting-scene-1.6242150">a
hero’s welcome</a> back to the scene
of the crime by Israeli settlers in
Hebron.</p>
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<p>As Tsurkov noted, earlier this week the
Israeli Army’s former chief of staff
Benny Gantz, who is considered the only
serious rival to Netanyahu’s re-election
as prime minister, started his own
election campaign. Three of the first
four ads for Gantz celebrate his record
of killing Palestinians, during the
Israeli offensives on Gaza in 2012 and
2014.</p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Time and time
again, Israel's Center attempts to
reach power by presenting itself as
more anti-Arab & more savage than
the Israeli Right. This strategy
usually fails, but helps further
demonize Palestinians. Why try to make
peace with people whose homes deserve
to be obliterated?</p>
<p>— Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) <a
href="https://twitter.com/Elizrael/status/1087457105399947264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January
21, 2019</a></p>
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