PA daily: Israeli media and politians use teenage girl's murder to criminalize Palestinian struggle
Headline: “The Hebrew media is falsifying the facts in order to criminalize the Palestinian struggle”
“‘Every murder that is carried out by a Palestinian illegal alien is considered a terror attack, regardless of what they say during their interrogation. Law [enforcement] members must understand this, and this must be legislated’ – with these words the so-called Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan responded to the murder of female settler [Ori Ansbacher] last Thursday evening [Feb. 7, 2019] in one of the forests adjacent to occupied Jerusalem (see note below –Ed.).
Immediately after the event, the Israeli media outlets came out saying that all of the evidence points to the fact that ‘the murder was criminally motivated’ (sic., reports said authorities were investigating the motive) and gave the details of the incident and the evidence that the Israeli police found at the site (sic., the attack was placed under a gag order, reports only contained basic details).
However, things changed very quickly the moment a young Palestinian was accused of committing ‘the crime,’ and the Hebrew media’s version changed to it being a ‘nationalistically motivated murder (sic., Determining the motive was not a result of profiling; the accused served a prison sentence in the past for illegal possession of a knife and intent to carry out an attack; and when released, he said he'd buy a knife again and commit an attack to become a "Martyr").’
Even before the so-called ‘Israeli Security Agency’ announced on Sunday evening that ‘The murder of the settler was nationalistically motivated, and the accused Palestinian reenacted the crime and his interrogation is continuing,’ the occupation leaders came out with statements condemning what they described as ‘Palestinian terror.’
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In order to complete the details of the new Israeli show, the occupation forces took measurements of the home of the young person accused of the murder in preparation for its demolishment as part of their attempt to establish the version, according to which what occurred is ‘a nationalistically motivated murder.’
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Journalist and Israel affairs expert Khaldoun Barghouti said that ‘After the occupation authorities announced at the beginning that the arrested person confessed to murdering the settler and that her murder was criminally motivated (sic., there was no announcement that the murder was criminally motivated), they again repeated that the murder of the settler was nationalistically motivated.’
He noted that all of this is occurring simultaneously with a widespread attack by senior Israeli officials that can be included in the framework of an election campaign on the one hand, but is also meant to take revenge on the prisoners and the Martyrs’ (Shahids’) families. This is through a call for ratification of the law to execute prisoners (see note below –Ed.) and for the implementation of a law that the Israeli Parliament ratified last year [2018] by the Israeli government, which allows it to take control of money from the Palestinian taxes that Israel collects of identical value to the allowances (mukhassasat) that the Palestinian [PA] Ministry of Finance grants to the prisoners and the Martyrs’ families (see note below -Ed.)…
Barghouti explained that ‘The Israeli leaders are using the murder of the settler [Ori Ansbacher] and the changing of the motive from criminal to nationalistic in order to benefit politically – internally and externally.’”
Ori Ansbacher - 19-year-old Israeli woman who was brutally attacked and stabbed to death by 29-year-old Palestinian terrorist Arafat Arfiah in Jerusalem on Feb. 7, 2019. Arfiah was apprehended on Feb. 8, 2019, and later confessed to the murder.
The Israeli Parliament voted in favor of a bill facilitating the death penalty for terrorists in a first reading on Jan. 3, 2018. The bill allows military courts to pass a death sentence with a simple majority of judges as opposed to a unanimous decision. It does not specify that it applies to Palestinian terrorists only.
Israel's Anti "Pay-for-Slay" Law - Israeli law stating that the PA payments to terrorists and the families of dead terrorists is a financial incentive to terror. The law instructs the state to deduct and freeze the amount of money the PA pays in salaries to imprisoned terrorists and families of "Martyrs" from the tax money Israel collects for the PA. Should the PA stop these payments for a full year, the Israeli government would have the option of giving all or part of the frozen money to the PA. The law was enacted by the Israeli Parliament on July 2, 2018. During the parliamentary vote, the law's sponsor Avi Dichter said: “The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee received much help in its deliberations... from Palestinian Media Watch who provided us with authentic data that enabled productive and professional deliberations, nuances that are very difficult to achieve without precise data.” [Israeli Parliament website, July 2, 2018] In accordance with the law, as of September 2021 Israel’s Security Cabinet had ordered the freeze of 1.857 billion shekels ($580.15 million) - the sum equivalent to the PA payments to terrorists in 2018, 2019, and 2020.