Thread by @reider

So here's a story of our time.
1. In 2016, an Israeli soldier called Elor Azaria executes a wounded Palestinian militant. Point blank. On camera.
2. He becomes a hero to the far-right and the execution of wounded suspects briefly became a wedge issue in Israeli society.

3. Briefly, bc it's long been accepted - at least since 2nd intifada - than even if someone used a butter knife to attack soldiers they might ALSO have a suicide vest and therefore need to be finished off, in case.
4. Which makes no sense to me and idk if ever happened, but ok.

5. Fast forward to 2023. A major cheerleader of Elor Azaria (and a convicted terror supporter himself), Itamar Ben Gvir is police minister.
6. After October 7th, Ben Gvir begins randomly handing out weapons to civilians, ostensibly because you need a Good Guy With a Gun etc.

7. This past Friday, two Hamas paramilitaries shoot up a bus stop in Jerusalem, killing three people, including a pregnant teacher.
8. The first guy to engage them is a local lawyer, Doron Castleman. A civilian who happens to be armed. A Good Guy with a Gun. He kills both...

gunmen and stops the attack before more people could be killed.
9. Then, IDF soldiers arrive. Castleman realises he might be mistaken for one of the attackers. So he drops his handgun. He kneels on the road. He lifts his t-shirt to show he's got no vest. He asks them

in Hebrew not to shoot, explaining who he is.
10. One of the soldiers, a settler with a self-confessed extremist background, shoots him anyway. In the abdomen. On camera. And walks off.
11. When more security arrive they assume Castleman was a gunman so they let him bleed out.

12. Castleman bleeds to death.
13. The settler-soldier who executed him gives smug interviews and gets much kudos from other far-right figures (they later erase the tweets.)
14. The army and police spend say they won't be investigating, before u-turning under pressure.

15. Netanyahu chips in days later, and says: I support the policy of handing out weapons; sometimes there's a price to pay, but c'est la vie.
17. C'EST LA VIE. That's what he said, albeit in Hebrew: אלו החיים).

18. RIP, Doron Yuval Castleman. A hero. Right guy, right place, right time. Wrong government. Wrong kind of state.

19. Maddeningly, much of Israeli media describe him as killed "accidentally" or as victim to "friendly fire." He was deliberately executed by uniformed neonazi douchebag who was too hyped up to stop, and, in his own words, all so hyped to mark an "x" on his rifle.

20. There will be many, many more Castlemans.

Update: Castleman's uncle says that three days after the killing, the family are yet to be contacted by any officials, and police are still not treating this as a murder investigation.

https://twitter.com/RkestelmR/status/1731074295130894747?t=3vZ9BdEjE2xcDk9otvg5Kg&s=19

Also, important clarification: Castleman had a gun because he's ex-police, not because of Ben Gvir's policy. But when asked about the killing, Netanyahu's first instinct was to defend Ben Gvir and his policy because a) he needs Ben Gvir and b) he thinks the policy is popular.

As @Nadav_Eyal notes, a sane prime minister would have a) spoken out against killing people who no longer pose a threat b) ordered a criminal investigation c) called the family. Netanyahu did none of that.

https://twitter.com/Nadav_Eyal/status/1731063548640416071

That said, it's perfectly obvious that the more guns you have on the streets, the more likely it is to happen again.
Basically:
1. Don't summarily execute people, even if you believe them to be the enemy
2. Don't let anyone wounded bleed out, ever.
3. Don't hand out firearms.

Finally - if you're using this thread to further convince yourself of the lie that most civilians killed on Oct 7th were killed by friendly fire / Israeli airstrikes / black helicopters or whatever, I'm sorry for you, and you're really, really not helping.

(Btw, all of this very much applies also to Hamas; e.g. that Oct7 bodycam video where we see unarmed Israeli conscripts huddling under a desk in an overrun base, before being machine-gunned at point blank. Just don't.)

Also, the family says the shooter has not yet been arrested.

Update: The soldiers who participated in the shooting are now being interrogated "under caution" by the military police THREE DAYS LATER and only after mounting public outrage. When it's about holding their own to account, the Israeli justice system be like

Another update: Netanyahu finally called Castleman's father, expressed condolences, called his son "a hero" and said the killing will be investigated to the full. He also claimed he "wasn't in possession of all the facts" when he made his c'es la vie comment. Castleman's father..

told journalists after the call: "I want to believe all this will be done, but we [the family] aren't going to stop [campaigning] until it is."