The Jan. 18 deaths of two men during home demolitions in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran continue to send shock waves through Israeli society. During a police operation to evacuate and demolish homes built illegally, Yakub Abu al-Kiyan ran over Erez Levi, a police officer, with his car. Levi died from his injuries and Abu al-Kiyan from being shot by police.
After initial allegations that Abu al-Kiyan had deliberately struck Levi, the conclusion taking shape in the Department of Internal Affairs of the Israel Police is now that the incident was not a terrorist hit-and-run. In addition, Abu al-Kiyan was not a “despicable terrorist,” as Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich described him, or Islamic State (IS) member, as Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan alleged at the time. Erdan has not apologized, but has changed his tune somewhat, now saying that if an ongoing investigation concludes that there was no attack, it will be necessary to apologize to the family.
In a Facebook post, Erdan placed the onus of responsibility for Abu al-Kiyan's labeling on the Israel Police, writing that he trusted their original statements characterizing him as a terrorist. “That's the way it works and that's the way it should work in every organized framework and between all government organizations and the minister responsible for them,” Erdan wrote to justify himself. He also singled out the Knesset's Arab members, who accused the police from the beginning for the tragic turn of events, saying, “It's too bad that their campaign of hatred and incitement [against the police] has been succeeding so far.”
Erdan omits that immediately after the incident he insisted that Abu al-Kiyan was an IS member based on copies of an old edition of Israel Today found in his home covering a terror attack. His allegation was why Abu al-Kiyan's body was not released for burial until the Supreme Court intervened. By insisting that Abu al-Kiyan was a terrorist, Erdan fed the public a false narrative that IS' ideology had infiltrated the Bedouin, who were now raising homegrown terrorists to confront Israeli law enforcement agents and the general population.
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