Racist Silence Binds Chicago and Israel in Killing of Teenagers

Ray Hanania
Wed, 02 Dec 2015 10:22:58 -0800
Opinion

There are many similarities in the killing of Black teenagers by police on American streets, and the killing of even more Palestinian teenagers by Israel on the streets of occupied Palestine.

Dozens of Black teenagers have been killed in America in the past year by police. Hundreds of Palestinian teenagers have been killed in Palestine by Israeli soldiers, armed Israeli settlers and Israeli police during the same period.

In Chicago, police shot and killed a 17 year old who appeared to be acting erratically. Laquan McDonald was carrying a small pocketknife, the kind used by American Boy Scouts. He was on drugs, but no one knew that when the killing took place 13 months ago on Oct. 20, 2014.
Updated: Thu Dec 03, 2015

There are many similarities in the killing of Black teenagers by police on American streets, and the killing of even more Palestinian teenagers by Israel on the streets of occupied Palestine.

Dozens of Black teenagers have been killed in America in the past year by police. Hundreds of Palestinian teenagers have been killed in Palestine by Israeli soldiers, armed Israeli settlers and Israeli police during the same period.

In Chicago, police shot and killed a 17 year old who appeared to be acting erratically. Laquan McDonald was carrying a small pocketknife, the kind used by American Boy Scouts. He was on drugs, but no one knew that when the killing took place 13 months ago on Oct. 20, 2014.

Heavily armed Chicago police wearing bulletproof vests claim they feared for their lives. One police officer, Jason Van Dyke, was among the several police cars that followed McDonald as he walked down the middle of the street on Chicago's South Side late that evening.

Van Dyke stepped out of his car near the suspect and shot McDonald, who fell to the ground where he was motionless until he died.

There have been dozens of similar killings in American cities where police shot and killed teenagers.

But what made the McDonald killing so egregious, and what pristinely reflects the same problem in Israel, is that Chicago's government covered up critical facts in the killing.

Police said last year McDonald was shot several times. But it turns out he was shot 16 times. Shot by Van Dyke three times, McDonald fell to the ground. But McDonald fired 13 more bullets into the boy's motionless body. He had to stop to reload his weapon to fire that many bullets, facts not disclosed last year.

Video surveillance was captured by police cars at the scene and by a nearby Burger King, a fast-food restaurant. But police went to the Burger King and destroyed the 80 minutes of video, and kept the other videos hidden. Audio in many of the police videos are distorted.

The video information was only released last week — 13 months later. Van Dyke was immediately charged with murder by the Cook County State's Attorney and fired by Police Chief Garry McCarthy.

Why 13 months later? Because Rahm Emanuel was seeking re-election as Chicago's mayor at the time of the killing, and the election was only four months away.

Emanuel has a controversial history that links back to Israel. His father Benjamin was a leader in the terrorist organization the Irgun Zvai Leumi in the 1940s in Palestine. The Irgun was a vicious terrorist organization that murdered hundreds of civilians, blew up the King David Hotel, lynched many captured British soldiers and assassinated the United Nations peace envoy Count Folke Bernadotte who was trying to find a way to end the growing conflict.

Mayor Emanuel himself seems to have a disdain for many things such as free speech, honesty and even America. Or just maybe, Mayor Emanuel thinks less of America than he does Israel. Mayor Emanuel volunteered and served in the Israeli military, but he did not serve in the U.S. military, the nation where he is a citizen.

As an American who served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, the fact that this has been omitted from Mayor Emanuel's biography bothers me.

During his five years as the mayor of Chicago, Mayor Emanuel has undermined the involvement of American Arabs in Chicago government. He disbanded the Arab Advisory Council, and canceled Arab Heritage Month, which had been held each year in November since 1990.

And, to satisfy his anti-Arab activist supporters, Mayor Emanuel canceled the annual Arabesque Festival, which was being viciously assaulted by the Jewish Federation of Chicago.

You won't read about any of this because it has been deleted from Wikipedia, shunned by the biased mainstream American news media, and those who have tried to raise questions about his conduct have been libeled, bullied and ostracized.

Mayor Emanuel has refused dozens of requests by me, a former Chicago City Hall reporter for 17 years, for interviews to discuss this and other issues. I think it is because I am Palestinian.

Mayor Emanuel is the boss of the Chicago Police Department. Although Emanuel fired the Chicago Police Chief Garry McCarthy this week in the hopes of soothing simmering anger over the McDonald slaying and cover-up, it's Emanuel who should be removed from office.

Mayor Emanuel and the Chicago City Council approved a $5 million payment last year to silence McDonald's poor, economically depressed family. The family hadn't even taken steps to file a lawsuit over the murder of their son.

Everything that happened took place under Mayor Emanuel's watch, and the complicity of the major Chicago news media.

Facts buried and distorted. Videos hidden and destroyed. Testimony twisted and fabricated. Media coverage silenced or ignored out of complicity. Right here on the streets of America. All done without any officials challenging the mayor's actions, silenced for more than 13 months.

And don't you think that when Israel kills a Palestinian teenager, the Israeli government can't do even more?