In this edition of The Debate, Press TV has talked to Hafsa Kara-Mustapha, a journalist and Middle East expert, and Richard Millet, a political commentator, both from London, to discuss the latest developments surrounding the shooting death of an unarmed Palestinian young man, Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, by an Israeli trooper.
Kara-Mustapha believes the reaction of the Israeli public opinion to the incident, which considers the trooper a hero, and the trooper’s shooting of Sharif who was lying wounded and motionless on the ground, truly reveal the nature of the Israeli society.
Kara-Mustapha describes Sahrif as a “victim of a brutal 70-year-long occupation.”
“Let’s not forget that his target was an Israeli occupying soldier which in state of law is a legal target regardless of any circumstances, and under international law that actually gives the Palestinian people a right to resist the illegal occupation of their land,” she says.
“Unfortunately given the impunity that the Israeli soldiers enjoy and given the fact that this has happened many many times before ... I don’t think that there is going to be a fair trial and the justice is going to be delivered for Mr. Sharif,” Kara-Mustapha added.
However, Millet asserts that there is no impunity for Israeli troopers.
He says that if the Israeli trooper who shot Sharif is found guilty of manslaughter, then he would be charged with 20 years in prison which, according to Millet, is equivalent to life sentence in a country like Britain.
“We can’t decide. We can't just hand down the judgment from a studio in London and say someone is guilty. We have to wait for the judge in Israel to do that,” he noted.