Talk:2015 Beersheba bus station shooting

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A few of many points ignored or underplayed

• Israel mob lynches Eritrean after bus station attack Al Jazeera 19 October 2015

At least one Israeli soldier was filmed kicking Zarhum in the head as he lay bleeding on the floor of the terminal. Another man lifted a bench and dropped it on Zarhum's head as others tried to protect him by placing a bar stool over his body.

• Ilan Ben Zion, Police to probe ‘lynching’ of Etritrean man in Beersheva The Times of Israel 19 October 2015.

A member of Knesset from the Meretz party called the attack a lynching and demanded the arrest of those responsible.

• Hunt for Israelis who killed Eritrean man falsely implicated in bus attack The Guardian 19 October 2015.

Haftom Zarhum was shot repeatedly by a security guard then kicked and spat at by a mob after going to the southern Israeli city of Beersheba to pick up his renewed work visa. In events that some Israeli media called a lynching, Zarhum was shot and wounded before being shot several more times by a security guard at the bus station as he crawled along the floor. Still alive, he was then surrounded by people who cursed and spat at him, kicked him in the head and tried to hit him with a chair.As paramedics tried to rescue him, the crowd chanted “Death to Arabs”, “Arabs out!” and “Am Israel Hai” (“The people of Israel still live”) and tried to stop them. “It’s terrible,” said a foreign ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, one of a number of officials to comment on the killing. “It shows you what a terrible situation we are in.” Zarhum worked at the moshav (a cooperative agricultural community) of Ein HaBesor near the southern Gaza border. His employer described him as a modest and hardworking man who had fled Eritrea to Israel for safety. “All the people gathering around the man attacked him. Nobody was helping him. People just were making sure he doesn’t move. There is no human being who did not kick or beat him. Everyone took part. I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about what happened and I feel sick about myself.”

Condemning Zarhum’s killing, Human Rights Watch described it as “a tragic but foreseeable outgrowth of a climate in which some Israeli politicians encourage citizens to take the law into their own hands”.

• Moran Mekamel I Survived the Terror Attack in Beersheva The Forward October 26, 2015

That elected officials have no consensus in condemning this attack is appalling. The fact that public representatives stand behind the killers, justifying their action because of the “need of the hour,” is threatening not only to asylum seekers, but also to any citizen or resident of Israel who wants to live in a safe and secure place.. .The dehumanization of African asylum seekers in Israeli public discourse has been on-going for years. It is apparent in the blunt statements made by politicians like MK Miri Regev, Israel’s current minister of culture, who stated, “the Sudanese are like a cancer in our body.” It is backed up by countless practices carried out daily by state agents that make these humans’ lives increasingly difficult.

• Isabel Kershner Killing of Eritrean Migrant Shakes Israeli Confidence Amid Surge of Violence New York Times 19 October 2015

Graphic video images of the beating appeared to show(that's the typical NYTs's querying the obvious if there is potential to hurt Israel's image) people kicking the Eritrean man, identified by the Israeli authorities as Haptom Zerhom, 29, and hurling a chair and bench at his head as he lay injured on the ground.The Hebrew newspaper Yediot Aharonot wrote that Mr. Zerhom had been running from danger when an Arab gunman shot and killed an Israeli soldier and Mr. Zerhom was mistaken for a second attacker “just because of the color of his skin.”

• Ran Boker ‘Prison officer who took part in lynching in Beer Sheva: 'I'm not sorry',’ Ynet 28 october 2015.

Speaking with Ynet, Cohen recounted the chain of events and said that he saw Zerhom moving

his hands after police had trained their weapons on him. "He hadn't been neutralized," Cohen said. "The first thing that came to my head was that he has a weapon and that he was making a move to take something out. I kicked him in the back of the neck and then sat next to him. I didn't touch him. "As far as I was concerned – as for everyone else – he was a terrorist," Cohen continued. Cohen had been on his way to hospital in order to have an x-ray on his hand. He then heard about an attack and ran to the central station. "I didn't think twice. I immediately called my wife and told her that everything was fine. The Eritrean was alone and started to move his hands towards his head," said Cohen. "The guy that tried to protect the terrorist didn't tell me that he wasn't a terrorist," Cohen continues. "He attacked me. I've been in the security forces for 13 years and I do not have a single record of attacking someone. I came to work in order to beat someone? "I could have escaped. I've sworn allegiance to the State of Israel, so if I see a terrorist that hasn't been neutralized, I will neutralize him," Cohen adds. "If a similar situation happens again in two weeks, I will behave in the same way."

• Tova Zimuki Family of slain Eritrean to receive government compensation 28 October 2015.

Attorney general overrules National Insurance Institute's decision in case of man killed when mistaken for terrorist, stating that he was a victim of terror and qualifies for benefits.The family of the Eritrean man who was killed after being mistaken as an assailant during a terror attack will receive compensation, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein announced on Wednesday.

I.e. the second killing by a mob and soldiers consisted of an act of terrorism.

Habtom Zerhom was shot six times by a policeman in Be'er Sheva's central bus station after a terrorist stole a soldier's weapon and opened fire, and as rumors spread during the chaotic moments of the attack that there was a second gunman.

= During the attack, a policeman shot Abtum Zarhum (Haftom Zarhum), a migrant who entered the country illegally, six times. Nishidani (talk) 21:59, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

References

Requested move 16 December 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved (non-admin closure) Iffy★Chat -- 11:36, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

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Beersheva bus station shooting → Lynching of Haftom Zarhum – Procedural nom based on an AfD closure; some participants at the AfD felt that the lynching of a bystander was the more prominent event here. Commenters noted that the word "Lynching" does not refer to the American English definition of the term; supporters of a move are encouraged to suggest alternate titles. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:19, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@Nableezy, Icewhiz, Debresser, Huldra, Melcous, Govvy, BabbaQ, and E.M.Gregory: - pinging all commenters on the AfD. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:19, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. Issues of Israeli (Hebrew translation) vs. English meaning (Zarhum was mistaken for the terrorist, shot by mistake - which severely wounded him, and subsequently hit by various bystanders in a disorganized fashion over several minutes. He died several hours later in hospital. The autopsy determined that he died mainly due to the gunshot wounds (8 total, 2 of which were fatal) - and not the beating (so the sub-event with Zarhum is primarily the "mistaken shooting of Zarhum" (cause of death), followed by "beating of injured Zarhum"). I will also note that while Israeli outlets use lynching liberally (for any situation in which a number of persons beat another) - outlets whose primary language is English (e.g. JTA -JTA, JPOST) do not or use quotation marks (e.g. Newsweek - "The police called it a “lynching” upon the arrest of the four men in October") around lynching. The Israeli usage differs significantly from the normal English of "premeditated extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate a group" per Lynching. More significantly - this was part of a larger terrorist attack on the bus station - in which other individuals were shot (3 fatalities total, 11 injured). The larger event was covered significantly as well and can not be separated from Zarhum who was shot as part of the firefight - when Zarhum was shot, the perpetrator was still on the loose with a gun and shooting. Icewhiz (talk) 05:08, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: I agree, the word lynching in English has a more specific connotation. Looking at the English language sources in this article, and the sources in the article on the documentary film, the vast majority do not use the word lynch, and those that do are apparently quoting Hebrew sources. The majority of the sources call it a shooting, an attack, or a terrorist attack. Furthermore, while it may be a sad reality, the reality is that the name Haftom Zarhum does not appear to be widely used, and again is absent from a number of sources, with the majority of sources referring to his nationality or status in the headlines/titles rather than his name. I agree with Icewhiz that the article and the sources are about the larger event of which his death is part, and so the current name of the article is fine. Melcous (talk) 07:37, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose the primary event here is a terrorist attack at a bus station, a mass shooting in which a terrorist killed a guard and fired into a crowd injuring 11 people. Tragically, a bystander was mistaken for a terrorist, shot by responding police, beaten by bystanders, and died. It was not a lynching; not, that is, a premeditated extrajudicial killing by a group has assembled for the purpose of locating and killing a particular individual. Israel has a peculiar usage of the word "lynch" not used in English-speaking countries. It would be misleading to rename this terrorist attack that produced a mob attack on a man misidentified as a terrorist as a "lynching" in an English-language encyclopedia. E.M.Gregory (talk) 13:37, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: Would be a very POV move and not complying with the sources that support the current title. --1l2l3k (talk) 16:28, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Suggest change doesn't really seem correct a title per whole event, Govvy (talk) 16:34, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support the ugly lynching by at least 9 passersby is what is notable about this, Huldra (talk) 21:50, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

The problem Huldra is that is covered, laughably, in Beersheva bus station shooting#Attack on bystander mistaken for 2nd terrorist. What should happen is that be appropriately expanded. And when that happens we can discuss what name this article should have. nableezy - 22:05, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Nableezy, I agree that the lynching is completely "underreported" in the article as of now, alas, I would like to see these two events treated in one article, not two. Alas, I guess that will not happen, and we will end up with a own Lynching of Haftom Zarhum article. So be it, Huldra (talk) 22:14, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - It is not a correct name for this article.BabbaQ (talk) 22:32, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose The whole thing started with a terrorist attack, of which the lynching was only a result. I find it disturbingly POV to propose to rename this article to something that is only a byproduct of the real event. Debresser (talk) 07:46, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Lynching of Zarhum needs separate article

The expected views of the Ziomericans and Zio-Britons aside, there's no question that a single article cannot fully flesh out this event (the lynching, that is). The tendency here is clearly to use the shooting as cover for the lynching, thereby absolving the latter with the former; at least one of the OPPOSE people above even admit as much.2607:FEA8:BFA0:BD0:39E8:1ABB:9318:E4FE (talk) 16:38, 12 March 2021 (UTC)