The High Court of Justice on Tuesday overturned a Beersheba court’s decision to release a Jew with a criminal record who hurled a gasoline bomb at an Arab vehicle.
Justice Menahem Elon, deputy president of the High Court, ordered the accused, Michael Maman, returned to custody, saying he was a public menace.
At the same time, however, Elon defended the Beersheba district judge who had freed him.
The district court judge was widely criticized for saying that “there was a difference between an Arab throwing a Molotov cocktail and a Jew doing the same thing.”
Elon maintained the judge was not proclaiming a double standard of justice, but was drawing a distinction between motives.
“One should distinguish between a premeditated attack with a political motive, which is part of the uprising, and an attack at a moment of anguish,” the High Court justice said.
The incident occurred near Ashdod last month, after the funeral of Sgt. Avi Sasportas, a paratrooper from that town who apparently was kidnapped and murdered by Arabs.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
