Elor Azaria in court with his mother. A a conscious smile or just a reflex?
Photo: Tomer Appelbaum
Ariela Ringel Hoffman
צילום: שלום בר טל
For the Azaria family, the worst is still to come
Op-ed: The decision to appeal the manslaughter conviction means a few more months in court for Elor Azaria. It also means that the grim circus we have witnessed so far will be replaced by a horror show courtesy of Adv. Yoram Sheftel and cause the entire affair to spiral out of control.
A proper system, free of suicidal tendencies, would have ended this affair in a day. Two days, tops. Maybe even three. Sergeant Elor Azaria
would have been put on disciplinary trial in the army, sent to 60 or 90 days in jail—and perhaps even been dismissed from combat service later on and ordered to complete his obligations to the IDF in a certain position at the Kirya base, as a boss’ driver for example.
All this would have not only spared expensive time and resources the army doesn’t have, it would have also benefited all the parties involved, and mainly spared everyone the circus which has taken place here for the past 11 months.
Elor Azaria’s father, Charlie, with attorney Yoram Sheftel, who pushed the family to submit the appeal (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
Had that happened, Defense Minister No. 1 Moshe Ya’alon would not have found himself putting the cart before the horses and condemning the act before the Military Police Detective Unit completed its investigation, and Defense Minister No. 2 Avigdor Lieberman would not have showed up at the courthouse to support Azaria while justifying his behavior, Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot could have made his appropriate and accurate comments after the proceedings had already been completed, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have come out of the affair looking better than he did with the embarrassing zigzag he got caught in.
But in the actual Azaria trial, anything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. A softened indictment was filed on April 18, the murder charge was replaced with a manslaughter charge, and the next day thousands protested in favor of Azaria. Later, during the court discussions, the extent of the disorder at the scene of the incident was revealed, and the question who really controls the area—the army or the settlers—surfaced in all its ugliness.
All that, together with the embarrassing gap between the different versions and the serious accusations that military people directed at one another, may have turned this trial into the best show in town—or at least one of the best—but it also cast a heavy and burdensome shadow on the military system.
And now, a week before the end of the timeframe for appealing the court ruling, which found Azaria guilty and sentenced him to a year and a half in jail, Elor and his parents have decided to bid farewell to the lawyers who escorted them in the past year—Eyal Besserglick, Ilan Katz and Carmit Shchiver—and stick with Yoram Sheftel, who pushed the family to submit their objections to the Military Court of Appeals.
This isn’t an easy move, and Azaria is worthy of appreciation—regardless of the harsh criticism over the actual act—especially on days like these when lenient sentences and plea bargains are the solution favored by defendants, who mostly enjoy the willingness of the State Prosecutor’s Office to skip the required process and allow them to get off easy, even if it does not remove the filth of their act (the Bouchris affair would be one example).
It’s true that on the surface, the arguments raised by Adv. Sheftel sound logical and his demands sound relevant, as does the new interpretation he offers of the events.
But it also means spending a few more months on the dock, with all that it implies—and only those who haven’t been there may think that it’s fun to warm oneself up in the light of the camera flashes, to enjoy the exposure. And this is despite the smiles that Elor is spreading in every direction. Like with babies, it’s not always unclear whether it’s a conscious smile or just a reflex.
It also means that the grim circus we have witnessed so far will be replaced by a horror show of the type Adv. Sheftel knows how to produce.
And so, Elor and his parents, who often look like people who don’t really understand how they got here and where exactly t"here" is, are about to discover that the worst is yet to come, and that the decision to appeal the conviction may cause the entire affair to spiral out of control.
“Although we think the court ruling is wrong and disconnected from the evidence—which is why we also wrote a 50-page appeal—we believe that we have utilized this proceeding to the fullest and that we must turn at this stage to other alternative channels in favor of the soldier,” Azaria’s three former lawyers wrote a moment before quitting, and even promised to do so without getting anything in return, “so that there will be no financial dependence on anyone.”
But Elor and his family made a different decision.
