The Madison-Rafah Sister City Project is deeply saddened and outraged by the death of US citizen Omar Abdulmajeed As'ad at the hands of Israeli soldiers.
Mr. As'ad was a
Palestinian-American businessman who spent four decades of his life in
Milwaukee before retiring with his wife to the Palestinian village of
Jiljilya, near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He was stopped by Israeli solders in the early
hours of the morning as he was driving home after visiting family on January
12. According to eyewitness reports, the soldiers forced him from his vehicle,
blindfolded, handcuffed and beat him, then dragged him to a nearby
construction site where they left him lying face down on the ground in the
cold. Mr As'ad, an elderly man who suffered from
heart problems, was clearly not a threat to anyone, was never under arrest and
had not been accused of any crime.
We send our condolences to Mr.As'ad’s
family in the Milwaukee area and in Palestine. Because Israel has
repeatedly shown that it is incapable of investigating itself, we call on the US
State Department to conduct its own thorough and public investigation into his
death, including interviewing the witnesses, in order to ensure some small
measure of justice for Mr. As'ad and his family.
U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin has issued a mild statement of concern in this case, as has
Rep. Gwen Moore of Milwaukee. We urge them not
to stop there but to vigorously pursue this case. We realize that the treatment
afforded to Mr. As'ad by Israeli soldiers is no more worthy of condemnation
than that routinely handed out to ordinary Palestinians (see for example the
recent case of elder Haj Suleiman, who the IDF left fighting for his life and who has now died). Yet our
government should have a special responsibility to protect its own citizens
regardless of their ethnicity. We urge them to fulfill it.
Resources:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinal article, with
memorial service pictures
Statement by Rep.
Betty McCollum
