Video Clips of the Acre Riots Damage

The damage of the Little Krystallnacht:



And here's a 6 minute video made up of stills.

Allow Me to Illustrate Arab Logic or, Illogic

Last first.

Here's the complaint:

...Israeli Arab lawmakers voiced harsh criticism on Tuesday over the arrest of Tawfik Jamal, the Arab man who drove into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Acre on Yom Kippur sparking the 5 days of violence between Jews and Arabs in the city.

Jamal was arrested on Monday on suspicions of "harming religious sensitivities, speeding and reckless endangerment" in connection to the violence.

MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am-Ta'al) told Israel Radio on Tuesday that the arrest was an unreasonable police decision that will not contribute to calming the violence. He added that the arrest lacked legal justification and that it represented a capitulation to Jewish hooligans.

Hadash Chairman MK Mohammed Barakeh also condemned the arrest, saying it aimed to appease right wing extremists.

but, don't they remember the driver's own words, as I noted?:

The Arab man who drove into a Jewish neighborhood in Acre on the eve of Yom Kippur, sparking a series of riots and violent clashes, told the Knesset Committee of the Interior on Sunday that he would "sacrifice his neck" to bring coexistence back to the bi-national nothern city.

"If what I did caused this, I am ready to sacrifice my neck right here on this table, on lowered gallows, just to return peace and quiet back to the city of Acre, to bring co-existence back to its place.

If he's ready to "sacrifice" himself, what's a few days in jail?

Go figure out the Arabs.

The Advantages of Hindsight

Now he realizes the errors of his ways:

Driver who sparked Acre riots: I'd sacrifice myself to bring back coexistence

The Arab man who drove into a Jewish neighborhood in Acre on the eve of Yom Kippur, sparking a series of riots and violent clashes, told the Knesset Committee of the Interior on Sunday that he would "sacrifice his neck" to bring coexistence back to the bi-national nothern city.

"If what I did caused this, I am ready to sacrifice my neck right here on this table, on lowered gallows, just to return peace and quiet back to the city of Acre, to bring co-existence back to its place.

Jamal said that contrary to the accusations brought against him, he had not been drunk nor playing loud music when he entered the Jewish neighborhood last Wednesday. "I just wanted to go home, I made and mistake and tried to ask for forgiveness. This has been a harrowing experience."

How difficult is it to play along with coexistence when the restrictions of Yom kippur are so well known? Even the person I suspect of fomenting the riots owned up:

Senior police officers met with local Arab leaders on Saturday, and all agreed on the need to restore normalcy as soon as possible.

MK Abbas Zkoor (United Arab List-Ta'al), an Acre resident, said that after the meeting, participants published a statement calling for reconciliation and even denouncing the Arab driver who, according to Jewish residents, sparked the riots Wednesday night by driving through the neighborhood blasting loud music while the Yom Kippur prayers were under way.

but

The discussion heated up when Hadash Chairman Mohammad Barakeh said that the riots were started by a group of radical Jews who settled in the city with the encouragement of "political elements sitting around this table" in a bid to maintain the city's Jewish character.

Keep this in mind:-

Teen wounded in Akko Riots may lose eyesight
Jewish teenager hit by rock during Akko riots recounts the incident

Since the beginning of the Akko Riots, 14 people have been admitted to the hospital in Nahariya, all of them Jewish. The most seriously wounded victim is 18-year-old Barak Avadi, an Akko resident and yeshiva student. Avadi was hit in the eye with a stone, and it's still too early to tell how much damage was done to his eyesight

"I've been living in Akko since I was a child and violent incidents are nothing new. On Saturday, around 9:30 pm, my friends and I were getting ready for prayer in the backyard of a private residence. The surrounding rooftops had about 30 to 40 Arabs standing on them. They were shouting insults in our direction. There were a few police officers in the street at that time, and they noticed this, by they were called to assist on the next street. That signaled the Arabs to start throwing rocks at us."

"One of our guys suddenly shouted and we all scattered across the yard, trying to dodge the rocks. Next thing I know, I got hit in the eye, and a friend of mine carried me to a house next door. The woman there took care of me until the ambulance arrived. All that time the Arabs were shouting obscenities in Arabic."

Akko is Not Going to Go Away

INN reports:

Three people were wounded in Akko on Saturday night as violent riots continued for the fourth night in a row. According to Nfc, the wounded were a baby and two men, all of whom were hurt when Arabs attacked a group of Jews in a Jewish neighborhood during a chassidic celebration.

While police assured the public that they would quell any attempts to renew the violent riots in Akko, Jewish residents of the city said Saturday night that Arabs continued to attack. Arabs are throwing stones and concrete blocks from the roofs of buildings, they said. Arabs accused Jews of attacking Arab buildings with rocks.

YNET

Riots resume in Akko for fourth night in a row

The series of violent riots that erupted on Yom Kippur evening in Akko resumed on Saturday evening for the fourth consecutive day. Residents are reportedly hurling rocks towards homes and businesses.

Police have been alerted to the scene and are working to disperse the crowd.

Pictures here (Hebrew subtitles)

And a reminder from two years ago:

Acco Yeshiva Under Arab Siege

Local police were called in to break the Arab siege on the Hesder yeshiva, located in the Wolfson neighborhood of Acco. Police officers took control of the volatile situation and the crowd began to disperse. There were no injuries reported, but one person was arrested for discharging a firearm.

Accounts from Acco indicate that the riot and subsequent siege was preceded by verbal and possibly physical attacks on several yeshiva students by local Arabs as the students were dancing Torah scrolls through the streets. The police verified that a yeshiva student, an active-duty IDF soldier, fired his weapon in the air when he believed he detected a threat to himself and the other students, who were dancing and singing in traditional post-Simchat Torah celebrations.

How To Plan A Riot (or Pogrom)

At Acre (Akko in Hebrew).



First, let's get the opening salvo:

Speaking to Channel 2 News, Jamal denied he had intended to provoke local residents, saying he had driven with his 18-year-old son and the son's 20-year-old friend carefully and quietly from the Old City to the Ben-Gurion neighborhood, three kilometers away, to pick up his daughter from her fiancée's home.

But police dismissed Jamal's claims.

"This was a provocation. An Arab driver arrived in a Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur with blaring music, and refused to leave when asked to by local residents. We believe he was intoxicated. This was a deliberate act," Galilee Police spokesman Ch.-Supt. Eran Shaked said.

Add a bit of incitement together with an outrageous Nazi comparison:

Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am-Ta'al) on Thursday responded to violent clashes between Jews and Arabs in the northern city of Acre, calling the violence a "pogrom perpetrated by Jews against Arab residents."

"The police displayed helpless discrimination in its treatment of the assault on Arab residents," Tibi said.

The riots erupted before dawn Wednesday when an Arab resident of the mixed town drove his car into a Jewish neighborhood during the holy day of Yom Kippur, during which even secular Jews refrain from driving out of respect. Jewish rioters alleged that the man defiantly played loud music, and proceeded to assault him, sparking large scale clashes between Jews and Arabs in the area.

Israeli Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash) said the incident had less to do with Yom Kippur than a deliberate "escalation of racist speech" ahead of Israeli municipal elections next month.

"We see a great danger in these attacks. They are similar to the pogroms that Jews were exposed to at the hands of the Nazi gangs in Germany," Barakeh told reporters.

Mix in a bit of mendaciousness by starting with the famous Arab tactic of "it started when he hit me back" when the original entrance by a car is ignored:

Jewish residents in the mixed town within Israeli boundaries pelted Ahmed Shaban's car with rocks and besieged his house. Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, Abas Zkoor was among the victims. He placed full responsibility on the Israeli Internal Security Minister and the police.

He said, “About 15 people were in the Shaban house and soon hundreds of young Jews whose eyes were filled with hatred and racism were throwing stones at houses throughout the neighborhood and smashing cars, including my own.”

But most importantly, forget that the drive-in could have been purposeful:

Knesset Member Abas Zkoor (United Arab List – Ta'al) sent a letter to Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter asking him to increase Traffic Police presence at major intersections in the Negev and Galilee regions on Yom Kippur for fear that Arab-Israeli vehicles will be stoned by Jews. "We respect those who fast on Yom Kippur, but we want to avert a disaster," the Arab legislator told Ynet on Tuesday.

"The Arab-Israelis occasionally need to use their cars to reach hospitals and run errands on Yom Kippur, and they are fearful that children will hurl stones at them at the intersections," Zkoor said. "Such incidents may increase the hatred - and this would be a shame."

Now, ask yourselves, if the Arab MK warned publicly, why didn't that Acre Arab heed him and not drive into a Jewish neighborhood the way he did? They don't listen to their own lawmakers? Or did they listen too well?

Especially after last year when Tal Zino was killed by an Arab driving a vehicle:-

A year after she was killed by a quad bike driving through her town on Yom Kippur, Tal Zino's parents are breaking their silence: 'The Arab drivers came here to provoke Jews on the holiday, our daughter was the victim of the first vehicular terror attack.' Attorneys for Assad and Muhammed Shibli however, say their clients were tried by the media and fault the police investigation

Or could it have linked to the failure of the annual October protests recalling the Arab riots of eight years ago (note Zkoor remarks)?

Even though tensions were exacerbated this year with the decision not to indict the police officers involved in the shooting that led to the deaths of 13 Israeli-Arab protestors in October 2000, only several hundred people gathered in the town of Sakhnin on Saturday afternoon to mark the anniversary of the events.

Earlier this year crowds of thousands took to the streets to demonstrate after the cases were shut. Some attributed today's sparse attendance to the heat, others to the hour, and then there were those who said people have just had enough...

...MK Abas Zkoor (United Arab List – Ta'al) was also in attendance. "When a Jew kills an Arab, he gets a commendation. But when an Arab kills a Jew like in Shfaram, he gets indicted," said the MK, referring to the charges brought against Israeli-Arabs who killed Jewish terrorist Eden Natan Zada after he opened fire on civilians in a crowded public bus.

"This proves that there is a difference between Jewish blood and Arab blood. Unfortunately, even today, eight years on, Arab blood is forsaken. While Arabs are indicted, the Attorney General closes cases for murderers of shahids (martyrs)," he said.

And see Suzzane's comment here.


Photos here.

Gallows' Martyrs

Yehuda Avner's article on three of the Irgun's gallows' martyrs:

Bygone Days: They went to the gallows singing 'Hatikva'

The 12th day of the Hebrew month of Av, which falls this year on Friday July 27, marks the 60th anniversary of the execution by the British authorities in Palestine of three members of the Irgun underground - Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss, and Meir Nakar. This column is dedicated to their everlasting memory.

As 1947 dawned, the more judicious counsels in Whitehall cautioned that the death knell of Britain's 30-year rule of Palestine was within earshot. "The sands of time are running out," warned the British high commissioner. But most in Whitehall were either blind or hard of hearing. Some even asserted that the existing political order in the Holy Land was established by the Almighty and, therefore, eternal.

Had they given the matter deeper thought they might have foreseen the inevitable. But thinking ahead is given to statesmen and chess players, not to autocrats and bureaucrats, and certainly not to a man of such anti-Semitic bent Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary of the day, who famously warned the Jews "not to push to the head of the queue" in their demand for the imperative opening of Palestine's gates.

LED BY Menachem Begin, the Irgun revolt against the British hardened. The governing authorities, driven by an irresistible hubris of self-interest and colonial blindness, and embracing the delusion of decaying imperialists in every age that punitive brutality will cow the rebels into giving up their resistance, began sentencing captured Irgun fighters to the most severe forms of capital punishment: flogging for relatively minor offenses, and hanging for relatively major ones.

The executions were frequently carried out in the Acre fortress, a Crusader citadel restored by the Turks and considered impregnable. In May 1947, in what was probably the Irgun's most daring exploit, a wall of this great bastion was breached, allowing for a mass escape. Three of the attacking party - Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss, and Meir Nakar - were captured, tried and condemned to death.

ON THE DAY of the execution, July 29 1947, the district commissioner of Galilee visited the Acre prison accompanied by the commissioner of prisons, to ensure the gallows were readied and all other necessary arrangements in place.

It would be wrong to think of these men as in any way vindictive or malevolent. They were, as we shall see, British bureaucrats doing their job. Their writ did not extend to pondering the iniquity of destroying healthy, conscious men or the unspeakable wrongness of cutting lives short when they were in full tide; or meditating on the significance of pulling a lever, causing a living person to drop through a hole, neck broken, rope twisting on itself, the body slowly revolving. Their task was to see to the formalities and the practicalities of the hangings, aware that if anything went wrong their superiors would wring their necks.

So imagine their astonishment when, upon their calling on the Acre prison superintendent at his quarters, he told them in no uncertain terms that he would not carry out the executions.

WHAT TRANSPIRED subsequent to that was meticulously documented in a number of top-secret and confidential reports to the higher authorities, quoting what each of these officials said and did on that day. Their names and functions were: Mr. Thorne - district commissioner of Galilee, Mr. Hackett - commissioner of prisons, and Mr. Charlton - superintendent of the Acre jail.

The following is a redaction of their exchange:

Charlton [prison superintendent]: I suppose you know that I am not going to carry out these executions.

Hackett [commissioner of prisons]: You are the officer detailed to carry them out. I have here the warrants.

Charlton: I do not agree with the policy of Government regarding these hangings. The whole thing stinks. Why can't Government carry out the executions in a normal manner, giving the prisoners and relatives proper warning as usual? I want no part of it. I am unhappy about the whole affair. Please send me home. I've had enough of this.

Hackett: Do you absolutely refuse to carry out the death sentences?

Charlton: Yes. I have carried out 44 executions during my service in this country and I have not raised any objections before. But now I'm adamant. I had a definite promise from Mr. Bromfield when he was acting Commissioner of Prisons that secret executions such as that carried out in the hanging of Dov Gruner [a prominent Irgun commander] will under no circumstances occur again. I will not preside under the circumstances you have outlined. I am ready to execute the men on Friday of this week [August 1] or next Tuesday [August 5] provided the proper open procedures are followed, meaning that the date is announced in advance and that the relatives are given the opportunity to visit the condemned men prior to the event.

Hackett: But the lawyer of the accused and their relatives will be informed prior to the event.

Charlton: I am not satisfied. Why can't Government carry out the executions in a normal manner, giving the prisoners and their relatives proper advance warning, as is usual procedure? The whole prison will be upset. It will be impossible for me to keep order or discipline if the executions are performed in a secretive manner. I am not going to carry out these executions, not because I am afraid, but solely because it is against my conscience. If the executions are postponed as I suggest, and done later in a proper and regular manner, I will certainly do as ordered.

Thorne [district commissioner of Galilee] to Hackett: The time now is 4.15 p.m. The intention to execute the three men will be made public in an hour-and-three-quarters, at 6 p.m. By that time the relatives will have been informed in Jerusalem. [To Charlton]: Unless you have someone else to carry out the executions, someone whom you can rely upon, we have to inform Government what is happening. I need hardly point out the political and other consequences if the executions are postponed because an Officer of the Crown refused to carry them out.

Charlton: I'm expecting Mr. Clow [superintendent of the Nablus jail] at five o'clock, and I'll ask him if he will carry out the executions. I cannot guarantee that he will.

Thorne: Under the circumstances, and in view of the fact that Clow may not get here in time, and given the importance of the time factor, I'm going to Haifa immediately and inform Government of the situation. [Haifa was the nearest place with a secure telephone line].

LATER, THORNE phoned Hackett from Haifa:

Thorne: Government confirms the executions must go forward as arranged. If Charlton still refuses to carry them out, either you or Clow must do so under all circumstances. Even if Charlton has a change of heart, he has become so excited he won't be in a fit state to carry them out, so there is no use in pressing the matter further.

At 5.30 p.m. Clow, the superintendent of the Nablus prison, arrived at Acre.

Hackett by phone to Thorne: Clow is here. He will carry out the executions if that's Government's final instruction. He is pressing for a postponement, though.

Thorne: A postponement is out of the question. The executions must be carried out as ordered. You have confirmed that the warrant is made out to "the superintendent of Acre prison" [and not to Charlton by name]. So I have relieved Mr. Charlton of that post and have appointed Mr. Clow as superintendent in his stead.

Hackett to Thorne [at midnight]: The tensions have relaxed. There will be no hitch in the executions.

AND, INDEED, there was none: Avshalom Haviv was hung at four in the morning, Meir Nakar at 4.25, and Yaakov Weiss at 5.00.

No one in the Acre jail slept that night. One prisoner, whose Irgun name was Natan but whose real name was Chaim Wasserman, was in a nearby cell, and he smuggled out a letter to Irgun commander Menachem Begin, describing what he saw and heard. He wrote:

"Early this morning our three comrades went heroically to the gallows. We were already aware of what was going to happen between four and five in the morning, and pressed against the bars with bated breath watching helplessly what was going on around the cell. The prison superintendent, Major Charlton, had left the place yesterday afternoon and was not seen again. Toward evening a party of hangmen arrived.

"The officers went in and informed the condemned men they were to be executed between four and five in the morning. Their reply was to sing "Hatikva" and other songs in powerful voices. They then shouted to us that the hangings would begin at four o'clock, in this order: Avshalom Haviv, Meir Nakar, Yaakov Weiss. They added: 'Avenge our blood! Avenge our blood!'

"We shouted back, 'Be strong! We are with you, and thousands of Jewish youth are with you in spirit.' They replied, 'Thanks,' and went on singing.

"At two a Sephardi rabbi whom we could not recognize from afar [it was Rabbi Nissim Ohana] was brought and stayed in the cell 15 minutes.

"At four in the morning Avshalom began singing "Hatikva," and we joined in loudly, pressing against the bars. At once armed police came up to the visitors' fence near our cell. At 4.03 Avshalom was hanged. At 4.25 we were shaken by the powerful singing of Meir. Hardly able to breathe, we nevertheless joined in. He was hanged at 4.28. At five o'clock the voice of Yaakov, this time alone, penetrated our cell, singing "Hatikva." Again we joined in. Two minutes later he was hanged. Each of the bodies was left hanging 20 minutes before being carried off, one by one.

"The chief hangmen were Hackett, inspector of prisons, and Clow, superintendent of the Nablus jail.

"At dawn we informed the prison officers through an Arab warder that we would not be responsible for the life of any Englishman who dared enter the jail yard. We declared a fast and prayed. Later in the morning we found the following inscription on the wall of the cell of the condemned: 'They will not frighten the Hebrew youth in the Homeland with their hangings. Thousands will follow in our footsteps.' Next to it was the Irgun insignia and their three names in the order they were executed."

May the memory of Avshalom Haviv, Meir Nakar, and Yaakov Weiss be forever blessed - yehi zichrom baruch