Israel Matzav

Jewish 'Israeli Arab' actor murdered in Jenin

Jewish 'Israeli Arab' actor Juliano Mer Khamis was murdered by masked 'Palestinians' outside the theater company he founded in Jenin (northern Samaria) on Monday.

Mer Khamis, 52, was the son of a Jewish mother and an Arab father - a rarity in a land where the two populations almost never intermarry. His split identity fueled a long career as an actor and a vocal activist against Israel's policies toward the Palestinians, with whom he had come increasingly to identify.

But some Palestinians objected to the theater in principle. He reported threats, and the theater was vandalized.

The theater's program director, Samia Staiti, told The Associated Press that she saw the killing. "He was on his way to his car when a masked man stopped him, shot him and ran away."

Staiti said he had received death threats from people in the community who felt he was going against "conservative Palestinian traditions."

"They are trying to kill what Juliano tried to spread - peace and freedom. We will keep on going on," Staiti said.

He starred in several critically acclaimed Israeli films, and also appeared in the 1984 American film "The Little Drummer Girl."

In 2006, he opened an amateur theater company in Jenin, a city that had been torn by violence since the second Palestinian uprising began six years earlier.

With the uprising fizzling out by that point, the company, known as the Freedom Theater, was meant partly as a way of restoring normalcy to the town's youth and opening their minds to the world beyond the harshness of their surroundings.

In the largely quiet years since, Jenin - like much of the West Bank - has become more safe and prosperous, making Monday's shooting all the more shocking.

Mer Khamis was an Israeli citizen.

Mer-Khamis' mother, Arna Mer, was an Israeli Jewish activist for Palestinian rights. His father, Saliba Khamis, was a Christian Palestinian. Mer-Khamis was born and raised in Nazareth.

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Based in Israel, Mer-Khamis was affiliated with the local theater in Jenin, established by his mother in the 1980s. In 2006, Mer-Khamis opened the Freedom Theater in Jenin, along with Zakariya Zubeidi, the former military leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades in that West Bank city.

Zubeidi was appointed co-theater director in an attempt to subdue the ongoing threats voiced against both the institution and Mer-Khamis. The theater itself was torched twice in the past, and the threats persisted despite Zubeidei's appointment.

Some of the criticism focused on the fact that the theater offered co-ed activities, despite prohibition in the Islamic moral code.

Objectors were also outraged when Mer-Khamis staged the play "Animal Farm", in which the young actors played the part of a pig, which Islam considers an impure animal.

Mer Khamis said he had planned to stage The Lieutenant of Inishmore, a satire of armed resistance, but shelved the idea after someone smashed the window of his car.

The real story here is that someone (Hamas?) is worried that Jenin isn't Islamist enough. But that's unlikely to get the international media too excited. It's not something for which Jews can be blamed.

Labels: Hamas, Jenin, Juliano Mer Khamis, Palestinian Islamization

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:51 AM