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Wednesday Apr 16, 2008
Posted by Sherri Mandell
Don't look at the photo of Danny Katz in the newspapers. He is so cute with his sweet face and his bangs that your heart will break. Danny Katz was 14 years old when he was murdered in 1983 by terrorists, in a cave near the Israeli Arab village of Sakhnin. He lived in Haifa and went to visit a friend and never returned home. The story is similar to my son Koby's murder. A boy with his whole life in front of him. But there is a difference. Koby's killers haven't been found. But Danny Katz's killers were. They were sentenced to life imprisonment plus 27 years and put in jail. The high court then reduced the sentence to 35-40 years. The killers' lawyer claims that their confession was coerced.
But last year, Shimon Peres, in one of his first acts as president, commuted the sentence so the killers will soon be released. It's not clear why he did so. Danny Katz's family has appealed the decision and on April 14th the high court found that Peres as president has the right to commute the sentence and the court cannot intervene.
People always ask me-- don't you want Koby's killers to be found? And I answer I do. But I also don't want the pain of a prison release or pardon as happens in this country.
I feel sick for Danny Katz's family, outraged. Everybody should be contacting Shimon Peres, asking him to explain what could possibly cause him to allow the killers of a young boy to leave prison. The family feels they have been betrayed by the Jewish state. It's hard to believe otherwise.
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About this blog
Heart-Earned Wisdom
Seth and Sherri Mandell on living with loss, establishing the Koby Mandell foundation, spritual healing and becoming authors.
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Recent Comments
Valerie, Israel: Visiting the consulate in Jerusalem has always been a nightmare for me. Recently it has changed to making appointments to get your passports renewed, and is much smoother. Altho I also had to go to the social security office at the consulate recently, i looked it up on the website and there was no mention of anything Israeli, a week before Rosh Hashana...I was also surprised...the social security office doesn't need an appointment and after the thorough security check, which was unpleasant, the clerk was quite helpful...
I agree w/Sherri about not feeling welcome...and hope it gets better..
Jerry, Florida: Lowell: youre right. Passport-losing visitors (like me) get expedited service. Olim need on-line appointments. Ben: because I praised our consulate 1 day after Hag and disagreed (politely, not harshly), with a known righteous woman, Im therefore not religious? Amazing ad-hominem shtuyot. Rx: Logic 101. For Seth our consulate is a racist, anti-Semitic, disgusting perversion, oy vey. (4 slanderous epithets.) The only obnoxious behavior I saw was by kvetchers in line, some sporting kippot. I saw consular staff treat all equally: the bare-headed, the kippa'd, and the hijab'd.
Lowell Blackman, Ramat Ilan, Israel: Poor Sherry. But let us be honest: the Consul General in Jerusalem really serves as the ambassador for the Palestinian state-in-waiting and that, in part, goes a long way to explaining a subtle, but perceptible air of unfriendliness towards American residents in Israel especially those from the territories. A quick look at the post-State Dept careers of a number of former consuls in Jerusalem tells the story. To wit, there is Edward Abingdon, who almost immediately became a chief lobbyist for Yasser Arafat and the PA and a harsh, mean-spirited critic of Israel.
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