When in Need, You Can Always Blame Israel

Sirhan B. Sirhan was recently recommended for parole by a two-person panel of California's parole board. The decision still has to be approved by the full board, and it can be rejected by California's governor (still Gavin Newsome, as of this writing). Sirhan, of course, assassinated Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, only hours after Kennedy won the California presidential primary, perhaps changing the course of U.S. history. He has come up for parole fifteen times previously, and was always denied. This time, however, Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon did not object; in fact, his office did not even participate in the hearing, saying that the role of the prosecutor ends with conviction (presumably following all affirmed appeals).

Sirhan's stated motive for the assassination was RFK's support for Israel. In 1989, he told David Frost, in a televised interview, ''My only connection with Robert Kennedy was his sole support of Israel and his deliberate attempt to send those 50 bombers to Israel to obviously do harm to the Palestinians."

In her pitch for parole, Sirhan's attorney Angela Berry, an Encino, California, solo practitioner, described him as a refugee who had "witnessed atrocities most of us only see in movies or in our worst nightmares." 

That is bunk. Sirhan was born in East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Jordan in 1948, making him a Jordanian citizen from the age of four. He came to the U.S. in 1956, at age 12, more than a decade before the Six Day War. According to Wikipedia, Sirhan's mother said that he was traumatized by seeing the death of his brother, "who was run over by a Jordanian military vehicle that was swerving to escape Israeli gunfire." There is no way to know whether, or how much, fighting Sirhan observed as a four year old child in 1948, or whether his mother was just trying  to generate sympathy in advance of a parole hearing. But, even if that happened, it could hardly be called an "atrocity."

Angela Berry succeeded on behalf of Sirhan where many others had failed, so there is no faulting her advocacy. But it is typical of the current anti-Israel smear campaign that the characterization of so-called "atrocities" occurred so easily to her as an available argument, and has been reported without question in the press.

The length of American prison sentences is barbaric. Sirhan has been incarcerated for 53 years, as a model prisoner, which has certainly been long enough to ensure public safety. He seems to represent no threat to anyone, and he has repeatedly expressed regret for the assassination and a commitment to living a peaceful life. The parole panel did the right thing by supporting his release, in my opinion, and I hope the recommendation is accepted by the full board and the governor (recognizing that the latter is unlikely to happen before the recall election next month).

It is most troubling, to say the least, that the claim of Israeli atrocities, although clearly nonexistent in this context, comes so trippingly easy to counsel, and passes without objection by anyone else.

Comments

[JohnQ]

There have been Israeli atrocities against Palestinians over the years. https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/ Whether Sirhan witnessed those atrocities personally or on TV they existed and affected a lot of people and do to this day.

I am not sure if the author is claiming there has not been, but it is not a smear campaign to acknowledge that fact.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Basic logic eludes JohnQ.

Sirhan shot RFK in 1968. Berry's attributions were to Sirhan's childhood experiences (things, Berry claims, he "witnessed" that "most of us" would only see on tv/nightmares) prior to the assassination; indeed, before he moved to the United States. But Sirhan didn't experience those things. Given his circumstances, the claim is thus demonstrably false.

Further, the Amnesty page JohnQ cites to nothing pre-1967, let alone 1956. To say that it would be a post hoc attribution vis-a-vis Sirhan would be an understatement; even Berry wouldn't be that foolish. So, yes, Lubet is correct to claim that it is a smear campaign of Israel to claim that this helped motivate Sirhan Sirhan in 1968. Was he upset about the 1967 War? Most definitely. Did he either witness atrocities during that war, or observe them ON TV or in other media in 1967 in the United States? Certainly not.

Sirhan's cause, of course, is in furtherance of, and validation of, 1400 years of religio-racial apartheid, cultural appropriation, cultural erasure, the occasional mass murder of minorities, and long-standing theft of both holy sites & wealth (in the form of differential and humiliating tax rates of the Jziya), including holy sites from which the original religious adherents were banned from usage thereafter. Sirhan was upset that the racist-religious colonization of Palestine was finally, after more than a millennium, being upended. Quelle dommage.

[Ediberto Roman]

Some acts cannot be forgiven. Great post otherwise.

[John Q]

Bosch - I guess if we can agree that there have been all sorts of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in recent years. This explains why many people are not going to parse what happened which years and will let claims of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians pass without objection today.

[Anonymous Bosch]

JohnQ:

I don't agree at all - certainly not based on the tally and mischaracterizations found on the Amnesty page - especially since 'atrocity' is a loaded characterization. I certain CAN'T agree knowing that people advance such characterizations in advancement of a lawfare project, itself part of an overall global cultural and legal imperialist scheme. Folks who, not coincidentally, SYSTEMATICALLY (and hypocritically) omit accounts of historical and present injustices perpetrated by their preferred side(s) in given conflicts because they don't help to advance the legal imperialist cause. Vis-a-vis that region of the world, such concerns are dismissed as being a mere function of a "phobia" that is, in actuality, no phobia at all.

Israel is just one cause célèbre in this overall project. Amnesty, in turn, is just one organization operating in advancement of that project. With the loss of America's hegemony over the coming couple of decades, however, these sorts of lawfare projects will fall apart BECAUSE they all form part of an imperialist project and are contemned as such by much of the globe.

I personally look forward to it doing so, AND to its perpetrators being held accountable - by both the Global South and the American Right - in ways that will horrify you.

Now, in terms of your specific claim that "this explains why many people are not going to parse what happened which years", this isn't actually a response to either Lubet or me. This is merely your trying to save face.

On the other hand, As the Western legal imperialist project has a limited shelf life left (at least as it's currently arranged), though, you can imagine that much of the Global South doesn't parse "which years" regarding their past injustices either. Historical land thefts in the name of a certain religion in Kashmir, in Turkey, in Palestine, in North Africa, in South East Asia, and elsewhere are not going to go unchallenged because of uti possidetis juris, when the norm itself is itself REJECTED as imperialism. Just go as China or Modi's India.

We could delve further into the falsity your last statement (presumably you don't actually mean what you say in the last part of your second sentence) and why it's NOT an "explanation" of anything, especially given that the many ACTUAL atrocities committed across the globe go unmentioned in both the mainstream press and in the pertinent legal circles, let alone by most lay people, and without political or legal ramifications (b/c of the geopolitical backlash, impact on economic interests, not wanting to appear "phobic" or racist, etc), let alone this being done by "many people". Again, basic logic isn't your thing...