The prison sentence imposed on an IDF soldier who killed an incapacitated terrorist in Hebron last year fails to serve justice and is meant to appease the Israeli Right, the terrorist's family said Tuesday. Sgt. Elor Azaria, 20, was convicted of manslaughter for the deadly shooting of Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, 21, last March. On Tuesday he was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 12 months probation. He was also demoted from the rank of sergeant to private. "The court decided on this sentence in advance to appease the Israeli Right. We didn't expect justice to be served," one of al-Sharif's relatives told Israel Hayom. Al-Sharif's father, Yusri, slammed the court for giving Azaria "a slap on the wrist. They're laughing in our face. It's all for show. If you arrest someone for throwing a stone they get two years [in jail]. Here a soldier murders someone and gets a year and a half -- because my son in Palestinian and the soldier is Jewish? My son in not an animal. Today they killed him a second time." Yusri went on to say his son was "a shahid" -- a martyr. "We'll take this all the way to The Hague to get justice. We are already consulting with international legal organizations," he said. Another relative said that "if this was a Palestinian on trial, he would have gotten a life sentence. Azaria should spend the rest of his life in jail. To make matters worse, there are Israeli politicians who want to pardon him. If Israelis think Azaria is such a hero, we can say Abdel Fattah al-Sharif was a shahid." Arab lawmakers also criticized the court over the light sentence. Joint Arab List MK Yousef Jabareen said, "The verdict clearly indicated the court saw this case a very serious and the indictment was very much in order -- we believe it [the indictment] should have been for murder. But this sentence does not reflect the severity of the act, and it sends the message that Palestinian blood is worthless." The Azaria case, he said, "was not an isolated incident, but part of a much wider problem in the military, which is supported by the political echelons and is fueled by a lack of prosecutory action." Joint Arab List MK Hanin Zoabi called the Azaria sentence "ridiculous," adding it was "in line with the ethical culture of the Israeli military and the Jewish state: Killing a Palestinian is not a crime -- at worst it is a misdemeanor in the eyes of the court and heroic in the eyes of the Israeli public."
