The Ombudsman for Complaints Against Judges, judge Asher Kula, ruled in a decision published on Wednesday that Judge Ziv Arieli of the Hadera Magistrates Court showed skewed sensitivity in a judicial decision concerning relatives of Walid Daqqa, an Arab-Israeli terrorist convicted of commanding a Palestinian terror group that abducted and murdered IDF soldier Moshe Tamam, H’yd, in 1984.

Daqqa, who was born in the Israeli-Arab city of Baqa al-Gharbiyye in northern Israel, died from cancer last year after serving 38 years in prison.

The criticism concerned the wording of the decision in a hearing held after a confrontation between Daqqa’s family members and police officers, who were ordered to dismantle a mourning tent erected at the family home in Baqa al-Gharbiyye.

Arieli criticized the police officers’ “lack of sensitivity” toward the terrorist’s family, writing in his decision that “it was possible and appropriate to allow the event” and noted that it is an event “that carries sensitivity both with regard to the feelings of the ‘deceased’s’ family members and other sensitivities related to the essence of the ‘deceased.'”

It should be noted that the police’s routine policy is to forbid gatherings in Israel-Arab cities in “honor” of terrorists, as it is considered incitement to terror.

Kula wrote in his ruling that this wording “creates a feeling of acceptance and balance between situations and factors that have no symmetry between them” and ignores the context—the actions of a person convicted of committing a heinous murder.

Kula added that the repeated use of the term “the deceased” in relation to a terrorist may create an appearance of respect or compassion toward one who committed acts of terror. The Ombudsman pointed out that in other rulings, judges avoided using this term toward terrorists and used only factual language.

In his decision, Kula emphasized that he has no intention of interfering in judicial discretion but added, “It was expected of the judge that just as he criticized the police’s lack of sensitivity toward the family members, so he would act with sensitivity toward those harmed by the actions of that same terrorist.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)