What's behind Israel's sudden enthusiasm to investigate attacks on Palestinians?
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked's push for a fast-paced inquiry into the case of an Israeli soldier's alleged abuse of a Palestinian was not about justice, but about bringing down Breaking the Silence.
On June 7, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked had asked the attorney general to launch an inquiry into claims by Dean Issacharoff, the spokesman for Breaking the Silence, that during his military service he had beaten a Palestinian. A little more than five months later, on Nov. 16, the state prosecutor decided to close the case.
The investigation had moved along at record speed considering the significant resources required to locate the said Palestinian in the West Bank city of Hebron and to question him about an event that according to Issacharoff occurred in February 2014. During the accelerated inquiry, police located a Palestinian resident of Hebron named Hassan Julani, who confirmed that he had indeed been arrested that year for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, but who denied having been beaten or injured. Issacharoff, on the other hand, claims the police inquiry was negligent and that they had questioned the wrong man, not the one he had abused.