Jerusalem - Abdel Majid Turki (45), a Palestinian farmer, was walking home from a day in the fields south of Hebron on Tuesday when a car closed in on him at the side of the road, writes David Horovitz. A 16-year-old Israeli youth leaned out of the window, brandishing a length of wood, and clubbed Mr Turki from behind. Without a pause, the car sped off again. The Palestinian farmer died later in hospital.
Jerusalem magistrates yesterday remanded the teenage suspect, and a friend who'd been with him in the car, into custody for six days. "It was just a prank," the assailant reportedly insisted. He "never dreamed something serious would happen," his lawyer said after the court hearing.
The killing of Mr Turki comes against the background 2 1/2 years after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing radical, of growing re-assertiveness by Israel's extreme far-right. Amid indications that the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, is hesitantly contemplating a further, long-overdue, Israeli withdrawal from West Bank territory, a poster campaign in recent weeks has seen Mr Netanyahu's features, in Arab head-dress, pasted up all over Jerusalem under the heading "Liar."