The Israeli political community is preparing for what could be the celebrated political trial of the year, when Rabbi Moshe Levinger faces charges of manslaughter before a Jerusalem District Court bench.
No date has yet been set for the hearing. But in the wake of the formal indictment issued last week, right-wing politicians have been quick to brand the decision to prosecute “tendentious” and politically motivated.
Knesset member Yuval Ne’eman, head of the ultranationalist Tehiya faction, went so far as to comment that the State Attorney’s Office is “full of leftist and anti-Zionist elements.”
Knesset member Geula Cohen, also of Tehiya, asserted that political considerations were behind the decision to charge Levinger with manslaughter for the shooting of an Arab shopkeeper in Hebron last Sept. 30.
And Uri Ariel, chairman of the Judea-Samaria-Gaza Settlers Council, urged the State Attorney’s Office to “get on with more important things” –such as prosecuting public figures who have broken the law forbidding contacts with the PLO.
There was no explicit mention of Dorit Beinish, whom Justice Minister Dan Meridor recently confirmed as state attorney, despite a wave of criticism from Meridor’s own Likud bloc and the settlement movement. Beinish was deputy state attorney under Yona Blatman, who retired last year.
But plainly some of the critics of the decision to prosecute Levinger felt that Beinish was personally responsible.
The Justice Ministry coldly dismissed the charges and imputations of political influence in the decision to prosecute.
CHARGED WITH WANTON DAMAGE
The indictment says Levinger and his family were stoned in their car while driving through downtown Hebron. They stopped and complained to army personnel. But then Levinger drew his revolver and began advancing up a busy street, firing as he went.
Kayed Salah, 42, was showing a customer some shoes in his window when the rabbi’s bullets struck him. He died later in the hospital. Customer Ibrahim Bali was injured.
Levinger is also charged with causing wanton damage to property along the street. He is said to have overturned several stalls belonging to Arab merchants.
A hard-line Likud politician, Knesset member Michael Eitan, said it would not be Levinger in the dock, but rather “those who don’t let Jews move safely through Judea and Samaria.”
On the left end of the political spectrum, Knesset member Yossi Sarid of the Citizens Rights Movement spoke of a wanton act of killing by Levinger and said he looked forward to the trial.
Levinger lives with a group of families in the restored Avraham Avinu Synagogue neighborhood of downtown Hebron, not far from the wholesale vegetable market. He settled in the predominantly Arab city back in 1968.
Levinger is considered one of the foremost leaders of Gush Emunim, the militant religious settlers movement.
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