Judge and fury

The death of a 25-year-old man who was struck by a car driven by a Palestinian near Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood runs the headlines in Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel Hayom on Friday, but the weekend edition of Haaretz leads with foreign affairs stories instead.

Shalom Sherki, 25, died in the crash Wednesday night, and his girlfriend, 20-year-old Shira Klein, remained in serious condition as of late Thursday. Sherki was buried on Thursday in Jerusalem and members of his family charged that his son was killed in a terrorist attack, Yedioth Ahronoth reports.

“We have no doubt that this was nationalist murder — this boy sat with the girl he was going out with at the bus station, and a terrorist came and killed him because he was a Jew,” Esther Sultan, Sherki’s cousin, tells the paper.

Sherki’s brother, a reporter for Channel 2, eulogized his brother and is quoted by Yedioth Ahronoth saying that “I saw the pictures of the attack, and I have no doubt that it wasn’t an accident.”

The police hadn’t yet come to that definitive conclusion concerning the incident and 37-year-old suspect Khaled Koutineh. Yedioth Ahronoth reports, however, that the authorities believe the incident was “almost entirely certainly a terrorist attack.”

Israel Hayom reports that initially the police’s working theory was that it was an accident, but after they gathered eyewitness testimony at the scene, “the suspicion strengthened that the incident was intentional on nationalistic grounds.”

The paper recounts how Koutineh was driving northbound on Haim Bar Lev Boulevard, the main artery separating East and West Jerusalem. He had just passed the French Hill intersection when he suddenly swerved onto the sidewalk, striking the bus stop and hitting Sherki and Klein. He then reversed into a stoplight, injuring himself and becoming trapped in the vehicle.

Haim Shain does not wait for police findings. In an Israel Hayom op-ed, Shain says Sherki was killed in “a hate-based terrorist attack” and adds, “God avenge his blood.”

“Hatred of Jews hasn’t passed from this world, it’s just grown stronger,” he writes. “In the Middle East and Europe we once again hear calls for attacks on Jews and for the destruction of the state of Israel. A direct and dangerous line connects Iran, Gaza and Ramallah.”

The top story in Haaretz is a report that foreign ministers from 16 of the 28 EU member states sent a letter to foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini calling on her to advance an initiative to label West Bank settlement goods as such. The signatories include heavy hitters such as the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.

The paper quotes senior Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem and senior European diplomats saying that the initiative was spearheaded by Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders.

The Germans are the only major country in the EU to not sign the initiative, Haaretz reports, pointing out that while they can do little to prevent such a move, Berlin says it opposes it and will be the last in Europe to adopt such a measure.

Even though Memorial Day is not for another week, the tabloids have begun their coverage in the weekend papers. Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth both put the number of people who’ve fallen in the line of duty for the state at 23,320. Yedioth also reports on a new song composed by singer Moshe Peretz, whose music video features the siblings of soldiers who fell in last year’s war.

Haaretz runs an op-ed by Nehemia Shtrasler defending the continued commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day. He says that “exaggerated, post-modernist reasoning” being employed to justify discontinuing the holiday is out of line.

“I am in favor of giving it added prominence,” he says. “The testimony of more survivors should be heard, more Holocaust films seen. The names of those who perished should indeed be read in the Knesset. We should continue to stand at attention for the siren on that day, join the March of the Living between Auschwitz and Birkenau and even see with our own eyes the furnaces in which some of our people were reduced to ashes.”

If Holocaust Remembrance Day is canceled, why not slash Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen as well, he asks. “We can skip them and go straight to the barbecues of Independence Day.” Or why not just cancel Independence Day, he says, and just move back to Europe and North America.

“History teaches (us) that in the cruel and cynical world in which we live, if you don’t have power you’re as good as dead. That is the lesson of the Holocaust and the wars that Israel has fought, and that has to be imparted to everyone, including those who deny Holocaust Remembrance Day.”