On Friday I went to pay a shiva call to the parents, brothers, sister, and – especially – the pregnant widow and orphans of Netanel Arami, may G-d avenge his blood. Netanel plunged to his death on Tuesday when somebody cut the rope from which he was rappelling as part of his work at a construction site. Nobody was at the house when I got there. Later, a few people entered.
I thought of all the shiva calls I had made during Operation Protective Edge. I thought of the constant IDF accompaniment of the bereaved families; of the feeling of solidarity that enveloped them; of the steady stream of visitors who sought to comfort them.
Netanel’s story is no less disturbing than the story of the three abducted teenagers. If you or I had been dangling at the end of the rope on the 18th floor, the Arab murderer would have cut the rope as well, and we would have plunged to our shocking deaths just like Netanel. The Arab didn’t murder Netanel for personal reasons; he murdered him because he is a Jew, exactly why the three abducted teens were murdered.
Netanel was one of those everyday righteous souls. He worked hard to support his young family. He had just opened up his own rappelling business. He didn’t come from a wealthy family. He and his wife were just a young Israeli family starting out on their own. He worked hard, dealt with his overdraft, with the contractors who didn’t pay on time – and nonetheless, employed another person who had a rough start in life and is also building his family. “Go out and buy everything you need for your new baby,” Netanel told him. “I will pay.” The worker did not know that the money for the pacifiers he bought for his own baby came at the expense of necessities for Netanel’s baby.
Netanel lay shattered on the ground for five hours. His mother heard about the “accident” from the Internet. The employee brought the police. They went up to the roof and saw the cut rope and heard the Arab workers laughing. A cut rappelling rope looks completely different from a worn-out rope. And there are always two ropes: one main rope and one safety rope.
The police have placed a censorship order on the entire case. What is the order’s purpose – other than to conceal the truth from the public?
On the night of the murder, the police called the grieving widow. They treated her almost like a criminal.
“You have to come in to the police station,” they roughly said to the widow holding her baby.
“Why?”
“You want to bury your husband, don’t you?”
“Yes, but why do I have to go to the police station?”
“You have to sign a release for an autopsy.”
“But I do not have a car.”
And so, the new widow, on the evening the murder was discovered, had to run to the police station to argue against an autopsy.
Since then, nothing. No representative from the police, nobody to give the family an update, no psychologist to help them over the hurdle, no welfare for the children. Nothing. Complete evasion. And a censorship order on the investigation. And media avoidance of the story.
It is a convenient way to solve problems. We will hint that perhaps it was a criminal act and not an act of terror. We will leave the case open. Using the excuse of “it’s an ongoing investigation,” we will destroy a family. Just like we destroyed Shelly Dadon’s family, may G-d avenge her blood. In her case, the flaccid Minister of Internal Security hurried off to the Arab town of Taibeh to announce that more investigative directions were being examined. Or maybe we will act like we did following the murder of Rabbi Moshe Talbi, found shot at the Yakir intersection, whom the police hurriedly murdered again by claiming he had committed suicide. The family had to heroically fight for years to get the police to admit that the beloved head of their family had been murdered.