President Shimon Peres has agreed to erase Disengagement-related criminal offenses for 59 citizens. The convictions will be erased from those whose only criminal convictions were for “relatively light” crimes committed during the period of protests against the Disengagement/Expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Shomron, in 2004 and 2005. Most of the crimes were committed by people who were minors at the time.
Peres reviewed each request individually. Prior to his decision, representatives of the Justice Minister, Attorney General, State Prosecutor and Public Defense formulated a jointly agreed protocol regarding the many requests for such leniency.
The timing of the presidential decision is interesting. It comes just a few hours before Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s major speech, which is likely to affect the future of the Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria. It comes also while the Official Committee for the Investigation of the Government Treatment of Gush Katif Expellees is in the middle of hearing witnesses; the expellees are hoping that the committee will issue recommendations towards the legislation of solutions for their ongoing housing and other problems.
The President’s Office issued a statement explaining that the decision to pardon the 59 was made “in recognition of the special nature of the Disengagement plan and the events connected with it, which were of a historic, unusual and exceptional nature.”
Ben-Horin acquitted
In a related item, the Jerusalem Magistrates Court acquitted Michael Ben-Horin, of the Golan Heights town of Nov, of charges of incitement to violence. Ben-Horin was accused of having praised Baruch Goldstein back in 2003. Goldstein is assumed to have killed 29 Arabs in Hevron nine years earlier, after learning that the Arab population of the city was on alert for a major massacre against the local Jewish population.
Ben-Horin’s remarks for which he was tried were, “Goldstein was such a great person and a righteous man… He prevented the slaughter of Hevron’s Jews, avenged the blood of Rabbi [Meir] Kahane, and saved the Hevron community from a great slaughter. He did it for the sake of the Nation of Israel.”
Judge Chaim Liran ruled that though such remarks are “sickening and infuriating,” they do not comprise incitement to violence and are therefore not illegal.