Who could fail to feel sympathy for Suha Abu Khdeir, the Palestinian mother watching her murdered son's friends graduate from high school? Like similar classes everywhere, the new graduates are seen smiling and optimistic, even if their full potential is blunted by the ongoing occupation. But their classmate Mohammed Abu Khdeir's participation was limited to appearing in a framed photo on an empty seat at the ceremony, his future having been extinquished by a hate crime carried out by Jewish vigilantes a year ago.
The notoriety of the crime and, in particular, the international attention it has attracted has ensured that this case is being used to debunk Israel’s claim that its justice system does not discriminate.
The accused – Yousef Ben David, 30, and two teenagers who cannot be named as they are underaged – have so far appeared 16 times in the Jerusalem district court on charges of kidnapping and murder but their trial is yet to take place.
This assertion of impartiality is, of course, a fiction that belies the fundamental inequalities in the legal system. If Mohammed had been a Jewish Israeli and his attackers were Palestinians, for example, the family homes of the accused would have long since been demolished and their wider families would have found themselves under intense scrutiny by the security forces.
Nor would anybody expect this level of thoroughness and judicial process to apply to an investigation into the otherwise less-heralded but commonplace crimes committed against the Palestinians, whose crops are poisoned or burnt, their mosques and churches torched and their land confiscated.
Like many Palestinians, Suha Abu Khdeir has little faith in Israeli justice. She predicted that even if the three accused are convicted, they will not receive life imprisonment and, even if the sentence is imposed, they are likely to be released after only a few years once the world’s media has moved its attention elsewhere.
Time will tell whether these fears are justified but it is worth remembering that under the political context, this remains a case of a teenager whose potential was brutally extinguished and a family grieving the loss of a loved one.
