Add this development to what Mel Frykberg at Inter Press Service calls Israel’s growing “public relations nightmare”: renewed attention to the near-fatal shooting of American activist Tristan Anderson. Just as the media spotlight is glaring down on Israel because of a civil trial in the killing of American peace activist Rachel Corrie comes a decision by Israel’s Justice Ministry to reinvestigate the shooting of Anderson.
Rachel Corrie - killed March 16, 2003 in Rafah, Gaza
Tristan Anderson, hit by tear gas cannister on March 13, 2009 in N'ilin WB
Anderson has been in critical condition in a Tel Aviv hospital for a year since he was struck in the head by a high-velocity tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops while he was demonstrating against the illegal separation wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin. An activist with the International Solidarity Movement, Anderson suffered life-threatening injuries to his brain.
Last December, Israel decided to close the investigation after a probe concluded there was “a lack of criminal culpability,” according to Haaretz. However, the Anderson family’s attorney, Michael Sfard, said that the Israeli investigators never visited the scene of the shooting and didn’t even question the Border Police unit that had fired at Anderson. Haaretz reports that now “the case, according to Ron Roman from the Justice Ministry, has been transferred to a ministry appeal committee in Jerusalem, which ‘will look into the facts in an earnest manner and may reverse the decision to close the case if it finds the evidence compelling.’”
Jewish Voice for Peace’s blog The Only Democracy in the Middle East? has more on the case from former San Francisco Chronicle columnist Henry Norr:
The Israeli authorities have done their best to sweep the case under the rug. Last August the Ministry of “Defense” declared the incident an “act of war” – a classification that, under Israeli law, relieves the state of any liability – and in December the Ministry of “Justice” decided to shut down its investigation into the case, on the grounds that the police had found “a lack of criminal culpability.”
Early this month, however, Anderson’s parents filed an appeal against the closing of the case. Their attorney, Michael Sfard, cited “severe negligence in the work of the investigation team,” pointing out that the investigators had never even bothered to visit the scene of the shooting and that the Border Police unit they questioned was not the unit that had fired at Anderson.
“The astonishing negligence of this investigation and of the prosecutorial team that monitored its outcome is unacceptable, but it epitomizes Israel’s culture of impunity,” Sfard said as he released the appeal to the press. “Tristan’s case is actually not rare; it represents hundreds of other cases of Palestinian victims whose investigations have also failed.”
Sfard’s detailed dissection of the glaring flaws in the police investigation evidently embarrassed the Ministry of “Justice” into an unusual retreat: a spokesman told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that in light of the appeal, the ministry would “reexamine” the decision to close the inquiry.
Meanwhile, activists both in Palestine and in the United States continue to champion Anderson’s case, not only to seek justice for him but also to expose the violence and injustice inherent in the Israeli occupation. At the latest weekly demonstration against the Wall in Bil’in (not far from Ni’lin, the site of the shooting), Palestinian, Israeli, and international demonstrators carried posters of Anderson, according to participant Roy Wagner.
And on Monday, March 15, friends of Anderson and other Bay Area supporters of justice in Palestine plan a noontime demonstration in his name at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco. Characteristically, the U.S. government has made no public – and probably no private – effort to demand accountability for the injury to Anderson. His own Congresswoman, Barbara Lee, said nothing about his case for several weeks after the shooting, but finally, in response to pressure from constituents (including an op-ed by this writer in the Berkeley Daily Planet), she reached out to Anderson’s parents and made a statement on the floor of the House demanding an investigation.
Comments
Hide the following 6 comments
any news on tristan himself?
16.03.2010 15:11
love and rage,
billy x
ps very glad to read his family's attorney making clear that tristan is not alone in his experience and that many many palestinian people have suffered similarly. respect.
billy
Thanks
16.03.2010 15:26
It is always heartening to hear that people are trying to keep up pressure on the Israeli government, and demanding, at the very least, accountability for its brutal actions.
Boycott Israel. Free Palestine.
cheers.
ninetto
Channel 4 has finally shown an accucurate view of Israeli occupation
16.03.2010 23:42
last night was really excellent. At last a mainstream TV program that showed the true extent of Palestinian suffering without cowing to zionist demands for "balance" ie: gross censorship. Reading the program's comments forum
one can see just how much this program has moved normal British people to tears, people who until last night just had no idea that this is how Israel regularly treats the Palestinians. And for once the zionist comments are absolutely swamped by ordinary people demanding this injustice stop and asking what on earth can they do. Watch this program, be amazed and then spread it everywhere you can think of.
sid
Homepage:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-56/episode-1
I want to be sure I understood it correctly...
17.03.2010 12:27
Israel
response to previous poster ^
17.03.2010 13:34
workers for the israeli state attempted to murder this young man because he took part in a peaceful protest. if you ever take part in a peaceful protest, will you by doing so be giving me permission to try and kill you?
saddened by it all
Israel, defending the indefensible
17.03.2010 14:05
To then bemoan the medical treatment being given to a man, comatose after being shot in the head with a tear gas canister, is really disgusting.
David