Pardoning of Israeli soldier evokes a long history of clemency for those who kill Palestinians

Israeli President Isaac Herzog pardoned Elor Azaria, convicted of manslaughter for shooting a wounded Palestinian, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, in the head in Hebron in 2016. Azaria served nine months of an 18-month sentence; Herzog's office cited the passage of time, Azaria's stated remorse, and Yom Kippur. Azaria has said he would do the same again.

The article traces this pardon to a string of earlier cases: Shmuel Lahis, convicted of murdering 15 civilians in Lebanon in 1948, had his sentence commuted and later pardoned, then became a senior Zionist Agency official. Soldiers convicted in the 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre of 47 people were all free within 18 months of sentencing.

Human rights group Yesh Din called the pardon proof that Israel's justice system will not enforce the law against soldiers who harm Palestinians. B'Tselem data cited in the piece notes that of over 3,000 Palestinian deaths in a decade-plus period, only 12 soldiers were indicted and none convicted of murder.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.