https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-immoral-inversion-of-victim-and-perpetrator/
Dozens of demonstrators gathered on Saturday night at the entrance to the southern Israeli city of Arad to express solidarity with their friend and neighbor, Aryeh Schiff.
Schiff, 70, was arrested the previous week for killing 36-year-old Bedouin Muhammad el-Atrash, who had broken into Schiff’s car and was driving off when Schiff and his wife awoke to the noise. Schiff promptly drew a pistol and fired twice in the direction of the vehicle.
The first thing he did when he realized that the thief had been hit was to call the police and an ambulance. EMTs who arrived on the scene evacuated el-Atrash to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva, where he was pronounced dead from a bullet wound to the head.
Meanwhile, Schiff fully cooperated with police, acknowledging in his initial interrogation that he had not fired a warning shot in the air. He claimed, however, that he had aimed at the wheels of the car, not the driver.
“All my life, I will have to live with the fact that I killed a person unintentionally,” Schiff told the Beersheva Magistrate’s Court last Tuesday. “My grief is deep for taking a person’s life. … [W]hen I shot, I had no intention of killing him. I am very sorry for the tragic event. I have already received my punishment.”
When the court ruled to release him on house arrest for the duration of the investigation, police and prosecutors appealed. They claimed that video footage of the incident told a different story—one showing that Schiff had purposely pointed his pistol at the driver.