Honenu to State Attorney: “Reopen the case”

Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher wrote a letter to the Appeals Department of the State Attorney’s office demanding that they order the reopening of an assault case and indict three Arabs who attacked a Jewish youth two years ago. In the letter, he described how a 15-year-old youth with an obviously Jewish appearance was chased by Arabs in a car after he, unknowingly, may have slightly delayed them while riding an electric bicycle in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher commented on the case: “Examination of the investigative material and the video clips paints a very disturbing picture. A number of violent Arabs in a car chased a Jewish cyclist and brutally attacked him for, in their opinion, insulting their ‘honor’. As good citizens came to his aid, they attacked them and other passers-by with iron rods and rocks. … The police appropriately detained the attackers and interrogated them over several days. They changed their testimonies from interrogation to interrogation and in the end were forced to confess that their only motive was to defend their ‘honor’. To our shock, the Police Prosecution Department closed the case despite the serious violations.

“Closing the case sends a dangerous message to potential attackers to the detriment of public security. Moreover, from our experience, it is possible that the case was closed because the attackers filed a complaint with the police demanding to know why the Jews who helped the victim were not detained. The time has come for an unequivocal statement. Jews have the right to defend themselves and their fellow Jews from violent attackers. The prosecution’s rationale that citizens should expect to be assaulted without any intervention is a dangerous conception that could lead to the murder of Jews. The Jews who intervened should be praised for their assistance. Attempts to equate a brawl between two fighters, with an attack on an innocent citizen such as in this case, are catastrophic and should be eradicated. We demand that the authorities prosecute the attackers to the full extent of the law and stop discouraging Jews from defending themselves.”