by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) The trial of Shimshom Cytryn - accused of attempted murder for taking part, when he had just turned 18, in a rock-throwing confrontation between Arabs and Jews in Gush Katif - will enter a critical phase this Sunday in the Be'er Sheva District Court.
Final statements by the defense and the prosecutor will be submitted this Sunday at 1:30 P.M. as originally scheduled. Though a key defense witness will not be able to attend on that date, the judges did not agree to a defense request to postpone the trial. They have agreed, however, to hear the witness at a later date before giving their verdict.
The Cytryn family asks that supporters of Shimshon show up for the trial.
Cytryn was filmed throwing a rock at an Arab who was seen throwing rocks himself. For days after the incident, the Arab was portrayed as having been critically wounded in a "lynching" - but in fact the next morning it was already known that he was only lightly hurt. The wounded Arab acknowledged, in an interview on Israel Radio's Reshet Bet station, that he was not harmed by a civilian but rather by the butt of an M-16 rifle held by a soldier.
Helen Freedman, AFSI Executive Director, wrote that the charges of "attempted murder" filed against the then-18-year-old were part of the campaign against the disengagement protestors. "Shimshon was libeled by the media as having perpetrated a 'lynching' against the Arab [youth], when actually the Arab mentioned was engaged with other Arabs in a stone-throwing attack on Jews who returned in kind," Freedman wrote.
An eyewitness on the scene told Arutz-7 at the time, "What happened was that one Jew threw rocks, and then about 30 Arabs came out and started pounding everything in sight with rocks. It was a terrible disgrace for the IDF - I came home all in shock at what I had seen. The soldiers were simply unable to protect themselves from this onslaught, even though the Arabs were pounding the jeeps and everything. The only time the soldiers did something real was when the Jews started throwing rocks back!"
Regarding the alleged "lynching," A.D. said the television footage of an Arab lying on the ground and then two Jewish boys running towards him and throwing rocks at him was a distortion of what actually happened. "That's not the story!" he said. "I saw this same Arab get hit in the head with a rock - and yet he continued to throw rocks, like a tiger, for the next 15 minutes! And then I saw some reporters go over to him and tell him to lie down and act as if he was unconscious. Later on, he was taken out walking on his own, holding on to a soldier..."
Though he has been under a form of house arrest for most of the past 20 months since the incident, Shimshon could face a sentence of well over a decade.
For information on how to contribute to the defense fund, send email to "amcytryn@netvision.net.il"
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Peace Now: Arabs and Jews Must Go Their Separate Ways
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