Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK reproached a British Parliament member on Monday over claims she made last week relating to the current wave of Palestinian violence, the Israeli Embassy revealed on Twitter.
Eitan Na’eh took Bradford West Labour MP Naz Shah to task for saying last week that the Israeli government provided no evidence of Palestinian minors “causing a death or contributing to a death using a stone.”
Shah made this remark on Jan. 6, during a parliamentary debate on child detainees in Israel. She told a room full of her colleagues: “The fact is that the disproportionality of someone throwing a stone or a rock and being detained for it is not acceptable.”
Na’eh sent a letter to Shah on Monday to express his “profound concern” over her comments. “I must impress upon you the fact that rock-throwing is a violent crime that can, and has, led to death on multiple occasions,” he wrote.
Na’eh cited the five members of the Fogel family, who were killed in 2011 after being knifed to death by two Palestinian teenagers, and the case of Adele Biton, the four-year-old Israeli who died in February 2015 from wounds sustained in a Palestinian rock-throwing attack.
Referencing a third incident, Na’eh wrote, “Rocks thrown by two Palestinian men in 2011 hit Asher Palmer in the head, causing his car to veer off the road and overturn, killing both him and his infant son Yonathan. These rocks, in the hands of adults or teenage minors, were lethal weapons.”
Na’eh concluded his letter by saying, “It was dishonest to downplay the lethal nature of rock-throwing, as well as the involvement of some Palestinian minors in heinous crimes. I recommend you re-evaluate your public position on the issue in light of these facts.”
Shah did not respond to Na’eh’s letter, The Jewish Chronicle reported.
The parliamentary debate, during which Shah made her comments, was called by Labour Party’s Sarah Champion, who accused the Israel Defense Forces of “mass intimidation and collective punishment” of Palestinians, and called for a “watchlist” of Israelis who have committed war crimes by detaining Palestinian minors.
By: The Algemeiner
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