Military court convicts Palestinian terrorist for 2018 murder of Ari Fuld
A West Bank military court convicted a Palestinian teenager of murdering Israeli-American Ari Fuld in a 2018 stabbing attack at the West Bank’s Gush Etzion Junction.
The Judea Military Court court found 18-year-old Khalil Jabarin guilty of one count of intentionally causing death — the court’s equivalent of murder — and three counts of attempted murder.
Jabarin stabbed Fuld, a father of four, multiple times in the back and neck as he was standing outside a supermarket near the Gush Etzion Junction in the central West Bank.
After he was stabbed, Fuld pursued and shot his assailant, who was attempting to attack a shop employee, possibly saving her life. He then collapsed and was rushed to a hospital, but succumbed to his wounds.
Fuld’s family lauded the court’s ruling and called for Jabarin to be given the maximum punishment. But apparently recognizing that the court would not hand down a sentence harsher than life in prison, the family said the only way to prevent future terror attacks is to give the death penalty to all perpetrators.
Although the death penalty formally exists in Israeli law, it has only ever been used once — in 1962 in the case of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust. It is technically allowed in cases of high treason, as well as in certain circumstances under the martial law that applies within the IDF and in the West Bank, but currently requires a unanimous decision from a panel of three judges, and has never been implemented.
Right-wing lawmakers, among them Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman have sought to advance legislation compelling the court to hand down death sentences for convicted terrorists, but have faced opposition from many in the security establishment who argue that the extreme measure would not deter violence.
Joining the Fuld family in calling for the death penalty, Education Minister Rafi Peretz said in a statement that while “the conviction of Ari Fuld’s murderer is a right step in the right direction, if the intention is to allow the perpetrator to obtain a bachelor’s degree and enjoy other treats in jail, then it is on us to carry out a serious internal reckoning of how we arrived at this situation.”
Addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Naftali Bennett directly, the Fuld family called on them “to protect the citizens of Israel on all fronts, to deepen our hold in our homeland, to strengthen sovereignty in all parts of the homeland without collapsing to terror.”
Last January, Israeli security forces demolished Jabarin’s home in Yatta, near Hebron, carrying out the controversial policy that the IDF says helps deter future terror attacks.
In Jabarin’s case, it appeared as though his family had attempted to prevent him from carrying out the attack. The IDF said Jabarin’s mother had gone to the Meitar checkpoint in the southern West Bank and warned soldiers, at approximately the same time the stabbing took place, that her son planned to commit an attack.
Jabarin, who was shot by Fuld and another armed civilian at the scene, was taken to Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus in moderate condition with multiple gunshot wounds, hospital officials said at the time. He was indicted a month later.
Fuld, 43, was born in New York and later moved to the West Bank settlement of Efrat.
A well-known Israel advocate and right-wing activist, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Distinction — the third-highest award that can be granted by the Israel Police.
Source: timesofisrael.com, Jacob Magid, January 6, 2020
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
