Israel Matzav

Why Juliano Mer-Khamis' murder is unlikely to be 'solved'

The Guardian reports that a leaflet in Jenin this week justified the murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis, the Jewish (via his mother), 'Palestinian' (via his father) theater director who was murdered in broad daylight in Jenin last week. That makes it unlikely that the 'Palestinian Authority' will bother trying to punish the killer.

Inside the camp, rebuilt since its partial destruction in 2002, people were reluctant to speak about Mer-Khamis. A group of elderly women sitting by the roadside, gave their opinion: "God only knows what happened but the theatre was a shameful place."

A butcher was more forthcoming. Standing in a small room with a portrait of Saddam Hussein and a sparsely stocked cold cabinet, he said he and others were offended by the theatre. "We are Muslims. We have traditions. We looked for our children and found them at the theatre dancing. If he came here to bring jobs that would be good but instead he comes here to corrupt our girls and make women of our boys," he said.

The leaflet justifying the killing of Mer-Khamis also demands the closure of the theatre and other western organisations, including the British Kenyon Institute, under threat of "jihadi action".

The leaflet attacks Mer-Khamis for his belief in co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians, "as if we could live with those who stole our land and killed our children".

It goes on to attack his plays: "What kind of resistance [to occupation] is the play Animal Farm, which made the young men of Palestine bark like dogs and lick the ground in shame and the young women wear the costumes of pigs and roll around the ground in degeneracy?"

The leaflet describes Mer-Khamis as a Jew, a communist and an infidel. "He was not killed for a scene in a play. He was killed for the accumulation of his activities since he came here," it says.

Mer-Khamis's most recent project, Spring Awakening, is singled out for particular criticism. The play by Frank Wedekind was banned in Germany in 1891 for its portrayal of teenage sexuality. In recent years a musical adaptation won awards in London and New York.

The leaflet then refers to a telephone conversation between Mer-Khamis and the Arab-Israeli actor, Makram Khouri, in which Khouri advises his friend not to stage the play. According to theatre staff, very few people were aware of the conversation.

The leaflet then praises the man from Jenin refugee camp who carried out the killing. "He did not do it with a silencer, or in the dark but in broad daylight, face to face, and he made sure not to harm the woman and child who were in the car at the time," the leaflet says.

Palestinian police say that their investigation into the murder continues.

Islamic society kills those who do not conform. Literally. Why Mer-Khamis ever thought it would be otherwise is not clear.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Islamic terrorism, Jenin, Juliano Mer Khamis, Palestinian intolerance

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:05 PM