Attacker in Israel said to be "Arab terrorist" until he was found to be Jewish

Two Israel Defence Force(IDF) soldiers shot and killed a man who they claim was acting erratically and attempted to grab one of their guns. They shot and killed the man because they believed he was an Arab terrorist.

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Yehuda Zahav of the ZAKA rescue team told the Jerusalem Post:“When I arrived with the ZAKA team at the site of the supposed terrorist attack, it seemed to be a ‘standard’ current terrorist attack, a stabbing attempt, and the terrorist was apprehended..I wanted to cover the body in a black bag [reserved for terrorists]. After I was asked to take care of the body I saw that he was a Jew, and that it was mistake to speak of a terrorist. I immediately notified the police and we switched to a white ZAKA body bag.”

Remi Brulin, from the New York University, has often written on the "discourse of terrorism." He tweeted that the incident proves what he has long argued that the term "terrorism" is basically meaningless except for its propagandistic function. When the attacker was thought to be a Palestinian Arab he was a "terrorist" and was to be put in a black bag. When he turned out to be a Jew the label vanished along with the black bag. The action was exactly the same whether he was an Arab terrorist or a Jew. Brulin compared the use of "terrorism" to that of "torture" as a description of water-boarding. In 2007 the New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani when asked whether water-boarding was torture said that it depended upon who does it.

Micky Rosenfeld, spokesperson for the Israeli police, claimed the victim of the killing refused to provide the soldiers with his identity card. He then started to punch them and attempted to seize one of their weapons. In response, the soldiers shot him dead.

This attack and death occurs just a week after an Eritrean refugee was mistaken for a Palestinian attacker and murdered. Not long ago as well a Jewish man was stabbed in a parking lot in a Haifa suburb by another Jewish man who took him to be an Arab. Fortunately, the stab wounds were not fatal. He wanted to revenge a series of Arab stabbings of Jews. Recent violence has resulted in at least 52 Palestinians being killed by Israeli security forces and 8 Israelis have died in Palestinian attacks.