Maof

Michael and Avital Ezer, refuseniks from Russia, have been living in Kedumim for about 20 years.

10 years ago Michael, as usual, went to his work as a teacher in the "Hizim" yeshiva in the settlement of Itamar. The neighbor’s car in which he had been offered a ride to his work, was attacked by a wild mob of Arabs who threw stones and rocks; only by miracle the car passengers were saved from being "lynched". Michael and the driver caught one of the stone throwers and brought him to the nearest army camp.

By doing this Michael and the driver changed from victims to attackers. The regional attorney brought a case against them for kidnapping, unlawful confinement and violence and the police prosecutor demanded that they should be punished by actual imprisonment. The court trial ended with a fine of 1200 shekels and an indictment as Michael did not agree to confess to the crime.

After the criminal judgment, the Arab, assisted by one of the leftist movements ("Ha-Moked: The Center for the Defense of the Individual") brought a civil claim for NIS 500 000! Michael fought on for his good name and complete innocence with the help of professional jurists who sought to prevent a dangerous precedent. Finally, an amount of NIS 70 000 including the expenses of the trial was awarded against Michael.

As of today, the Ezer family has been fighting for almost 10 years to clear its name and to acquit Michael of the guilt of attacking the Arab. All the efforts to arrive at a complete acquittal have failed.

We, the residents of Kedumim, have got together to help the family, that has to pay within a short time the sum of NIS 70 000, and to turn with this request to people outside of Kedumim to ask them for their help in this cause.

Any one of us can find ourselves in this awful position and therefore we turn to you with a request to help us and ask everyone to help and donate as he can.

Donations to "The Ezer Fund" ("Keren le Ezer") can be made by way of a bank transfer or through Paypal. Costwise, amounts over $500 are better donated by a bank transfer and amounts less than $500 through Paypal.

Bank transfers should be made to Bank Mizrachi in Karnei Shomron (483), account No. 20-483-157271 ("Keren le Ezer").

Paypal transfers should be made to Адрес электронной почты защищен от спам-ботов. Для просмотра адреса в вашем браузере должен быть включен Javascript., indicating that the transfer is for Michael Ezer.

For details: Yael Mordechai 09-7921138 or Esther Karish 0577-614422.
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  Перевод статьи Аси Энтовой на английский.
 

Seven years ago a newspaper sketch 'When they beat you - run' described the sad story of Michael Ezer - an immigrant from Russia, Soviet dissident, teacher, instructor and historian holding a Ph.D. in history from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The incident took place in 1997 when Arab terrorism mounted after the concessions of the Oslo accords. Michael was going from his home in the settlement of Kdumim to his work at a school in Itamar where he was a teacher of history. A neighbor, Avri Ron, from Itamar, offered him a ride in his car. When they passed by the Arab village of Hauvara, four kilometres from the town of Schem (Nablus), a mob of Arab teenagers started throwing stones at the car Michael was in. Michael and Avri managed to escape the mob without shooting and to drag into the car one of the attackers. They brought him to the Israeli army base №3 several kilometres from the village of Hauvara and reported the incident to the soldiers asking them to put the situation in the village under control.

However, the incident led to an unpredictable result – the criminal case was started not against the Arab attackers, but against Michael and Avri. Arabs complained about “an attack against a poor child”, the child being a 19-year-old Salim Tsfadi, who, according to his doctor, suffered under a physical disability (a lameness and partially paralyzed right hand). Although nobody denied that Salim was one of the attackers, the interference of lawyers from Human Rights Association and the involvement of US consulate have resulted in Michael’s arrest. He was out only on 7000-sheqel bail brought by Kedumim council. However, in a month (record term for Israel) the criminal proceeding was brought and litigation began...

The prosecutor Junes has managed to transform Michael’s and Avri’s act of civic courage into an act of crime and the attacker Tsfadi into a victim. This was the beginning of an absurd story that has been unfolding for almost 10 years.

The newspaper article only described the first part of this nightmare: the criminal trial in the court of the first instance went on for more than two years. The prosecutor demanded a sentence of imprisonment or at least corrective work and even warned the judge that in the event of a “mild verdict” he is ready to complain to the Hague tribunal. The speech of the prosecution in court lasted 4 hours and 20 minutes, breaking the four-hour record of public prosecutor Kenneth Star in the Clinton trial that took place almost at the same time. Naftali Vertsberger, leading Israeli lawyer, who defended Michael Ezer in court, had to put in great efforts to prove the elementary thesis that every human being has a right to protect his life and dignity and is allowed not only to seek safety through escape but to defend himself. Judge Gabriela de Lio-Levi recognized the detention of the Arab as lawful self-defense but has imposed a penalty of NIS 1200 because the Arab was taken from the car to the military base by Michael and Avri themselves rather than by representatives of the authorities. Legally it was put as “application of violence and threats”. The court decision particularly noted that Michael did not wish to admit the act of beating that Salim complained of. The medical examination of the police medical experts found no traces of beating on Salim’s body either immediately after the incident or later. But the judge did not believe that armed settlers did not, even partially, take revenge on the Arab for smashing the car, all of the windows of which were smashed and the hull of which was crushed in many places. The court held that had Michael frankly admitted the act of beating the verdict would have been milder, possibly limited to administrative punishment. But as Michael refused to admit a fact that did not take place, the penalty in his case was entered as a criminal conviction, which is happens seldom in an Israeli court and which makes the career of the professional teacher and instructor extremely complicated.

Giving testimony at the trial Salim Tsfadi denied active participation in the stone-throwing but did not deny the fact of the stone-throwing attack; he offered to show to the interrogator several active participants, his classmates. The interrogator took no interest n this information, and nobody was sent to the village for investigation. Moreover, during the initial interrogations Salim did not mention that he had been threatened with a weapon. During the trial Ezer testified that he had been holding a weapon in his hand; however, the police report transformed his words into “I aimed the weapon I was holding in my hand at the Arab". After hearing these words in court the Arab started claiming he had been afraid of the weapon aimed at him by Michael and began relying on the polic report version.

Later Salim invented some more uses for Michael’s weapon – according to his later “recollections”, Michael had beaten him on his head and face with the weapon. Given that Michael had a heavy parabellum with a 15-cartridge drum and given that the medical examination found no traces of beating, Salim’s story should seem at least strange and unrealistic.

The testimony of the main witness for the prosecution, a Haifa soldier Avishai Avgar, was also replete with interesting detail. He was one of 5 soldiers, including an officer, who received the Arab at the army base №3 that day, but throughout the inquest he claimed he did not remember the names of the other 4 soldiers. According to his testimony, the beating of the Arab began in the car as it was approaching the army base. Michael, according to the soldier, was driving the car holding the wheel with one hand while with the other hand he was beating Salim who was sitting in the back seat of the car. This is an imaginative detail by itself, given that the car, a commodious “Ford-Transit”, was driven by its owner, Avri, and that Michael had never driven any car and has no driver’s license. Moreover, the soldier alleged that after telling the Arab to leave the car, the settlers started beating him with their hands, and when he was left the car, with their heavy boots (in fact, both settlers wore sandals) until the brave soldiers rushed to rescue him. Indeed, Salim himself did not have an imagination lively enough to invent such a colorful story. For an unknown reason Avishai failed to notice that the car’s hull and windows were smashed and partially broken.

The court took no interest in the testimony of two boys from the eleventh grade of the yeshiva where Ezer used to teach history and geography of Israel, who at the time of the incident happened to stand on a usual hitch-hiking place on the road near the army base. The court decided that their testimony was suspect as it differed from that of the soldier and of the Arab. The boys were held to be politically biased.

So, Michael Ezer who acted heroically to detain an attacker or at least an important witness, was rewarded with a criminal case and penalty. But his misfortunes were only beginning. The Office of Public Prosecutor appealed the verdict as being too mild. Michael had again to spend money in attorney fees, retaining Vertsberger again, and to worry, faced with the utter absurdity of the situation. The court verdict was not changed, but Ezer had to go through more hassle and worry.

In the spring of 2001 the Jerusalem-based Moked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, founded by Lota Zaltsberg, brought a case against Michael Ezer accusing him of “abduction, unlawful detention, beatings, threats and injury to honor and dignity” of Salim Tsfadi. The damage caused to Tsfadi, by now a married man and father to several children, was estimated at half a million shekels (NIS 500 000). From the moment the suit was brought, five lawyers, three Jewish and two Arab, simultaneously represented the "victim" at various stages of litigation - Tamir Blank, Adi Landau, Michael Hazan, Elijahu Avram, Raida Karavani, and Hisham Shabita. The money for attorneys’ fees came from the EU wherefrom the Center’s financing comes.

Unfortunately, Ezer did not realize the importance of the Arab’s claim against him. Shortly before the Center for the Defense of the Individual started the process against Ezer, it had won a lawsuit and has received half a billion shekels as compensation for the damage allegedly caused to Arab property by the IDF during the first intifada in 1988. In that case the Knesset was compelled to pass a retroactive law declaring the zone of the intifada a military zone. Only recognition of the necessity of military action obviates the need to compensate for every bush of tomatoes crushed by an army jeep in pursuit of terrorists.

Michael had no money to retain a lawyer; due to the criminal case, he had problems finding a job. A young lawyer Alex Fuxbrumer from Kedumim, which worked at the Ministry of Justice, agreed to represent Michael in court pro bono. That led him into problems at his workplace at the Ministry, where he was threatened with dismissal. Judge Irit Cohen sought quickly to settle the case against Ezer and the case against Avri, who refused to participate in this mock-trial, and many times suggested that the parties compromise at a “reasonable settlement amount”. However, both defendants felt they were trying to protect their ideas of the rule of law and democracy and did not want to pay off those who may kill them the next day. Ezer’s lawyer filed a counter-claim against the police investigation department (for failure to search for the attackers as the real offenders of the case and for manipulating the evidence), against the Office of Public Prosecutor, against Salim Tsfadi (as one of the attackers), and against the Palestinian Autonomy. In the meantime, as Avri Ran did not appear in court, a default judgment of NIS 75000 was automatically awarded against him. From Ezer, however, the Center expected to receive much more.

The reader already guesses how this story would end. Some of Ezer’s claims were rejected on technical grounds such as late filing or the impossibility for an individual to bring suit against the Palestinian Authority, which is a prerogative of the Ministry of Justice), while other claims were automatically decided against Ezer in the course of the trial. On many occasions the judge hinted to Ezer that his obstinacy and his defense of his principles can "cost him even more than he imagined".

The trial served as another rehearsal of the old fibs about Ezer’s mythical brutality, interspersed with some new “pearls” of fiction. A new witness for the plaintiff, by the name of Issah, a friend of Salim Tsfadi, appeared in court. He was telling colorful stories of his “peaceful and physically weak” friend. But the most interesting part was his “recollection” describing Michael Ezer. According to Issah, he was more than 180 cm tall, wide-shouldered, with a huge belly, a dense black beard almost touching the belt, swarthy, and absolutely bald. As a matter of fact, Issa was called to testify while Ezer left the courtroom for the toilet, returned only by the end of Issah’s story. Counsel’s announcement: "Here is Ezer!" caused the “witness” to blush and raised a laugh in the courtroom, because Ezer is only 172 cm tall, weighs 73 kg, has long curly gray hair and a short gray beard and light European complexion.

However, the judge explained all the "little discrepancies" in Issah’s testimony as caused by the Arab’s nervous condition during the events and his difficult life during all these years since 1997. Only those parts of the testimony that supported the charge were taken into consideration.

Almost ten months elapsed between the last court session and the judgment; the judge had some hard work to do; realizing that 99 percent of the case is false testimony, she had to give the maximal weight to the remaining one percent and to attach maximum importance to such facts and such myths that she believed. Thus, the allegations of dragging the teenager from the car and holding his ear while leading him to the soldiers and imaginary threats in the car were made into severe physical violence and moral threats to the “poor boy” living in the “quiet village of Tel” near the “peaceful” city of Schem. These "threats" were assessed at NIS 53 000. Another NIS 20 000 are to be paid to the Center in legal costs. Altogether the award against Ezer exceeds NIS 75 000. This sum is much beyond what the Ezer family can muster, so that they now face a quite real threat to have their house and furniture confiscated by the judicial executors.

Michael and its wife Avital are still paying the mortgage loan for their house in Kedumim. They have 5 daughters, one already grown up, and the other four still at school and living with their parents. For the last two years Michael has worked in the CIS countries as a delegate of the Ministry of Education of Israel, teaching in Jewish schools. At the moment he is unemployed. His wife works as a social worker at a part-time job with retired people in Kedumim and is in charge of the local mikvah. The Ezer family have almost no hope for the aid of numerous public funds – too many people in Israel stand in need of help these days: the refugees from Gush-Katif, the refugees of the North, the victims in the "orange protest" demonstrations, and more.

Friends and neighbors are trying to help the Ezer family. An account to collect donations for the “Ezer Fund” (“Keren le Ezer”) has been opened in a branch of Bank Mizrahi in Karney Shomron.

Donations to "The Ezer Fund" ("Keren le Ezer") can be made by way of a bank transfer or through Paypal. Costwise, amounts over $500 are better donated by a bank transfer and amounts less than $500 through Paypal.

Bank transfers should be made to Bank Mizrachi in Karnei Shomron (483), account No. 20-483-157271 ("Keren le Ezer").

Paypal transfers should be made to Адрес электронной почты защищен от спам-ботов. Для просмотра адреса в вашем браузере должен быть включен Javascript., indicating that the transfer is for Michael Ezer.

For details: Yael Mordechai 09-7921138 or Esther Karish 0577-614422.

Any donation will be accepted with gratitude.