Sunday, September 21, 2008

Israeli Court: Disengagement Was Traumatic

I am not happy with the circumstances of this judgment but in the legal system, precedents are precedents.

Today, Sunday, the Nazareth District Court sentenced a man to seven years in prison for stabbing his wife over suspicions she was in a relationship with another man.

The judges, Hashem Khatib, Ziyad Hawari and Binyamin Arbel, cited mitigating circumstances for their leniency towards the defendant, to whit: the impact of having been evacuated from his home in the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

To be exact, as exact as any newspaper report is:

The judges explained their decision, citing "crises he has been through, being forced to uproot his life and to move from his home twice, causing him severe shock and possibly even a lack of stability and confidence."


On the one hand, finally, the elite establishment in Israel has recognized that in addition to the lack of security the disengagement has resulted in, the tremendous expenditures in infrastructure, albeit woefully behind the schedules and the all-around malaise of public confidence that does not exist, the act of evacuation and expulsion caused shock, instability and lack of rational behavior.

On the other hand, one hopes this isn't a license to do harm, commit violence or otherwise assassinate public officials responsible for the disengagement.

1 comment:

Leah Goodman said...

I think they should have sentenced him to a psychiatric hospital if they believed he was unstable.

I don't actually understand the whole concept of "you're unstable so you should go to jail for less time"