Haaretz
Racially motivated violence against Arab Israelis ‘sows terror’ and is ‘completely contrary to the core values of the State of Israel,’ Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, increasing the sentence of an Israeli man from nine months of community service to two years in prison for his role in a racially motivated attack on two Arab men in 2021.
The attack took place in November 2021. Yaniv Shabtai and two friends, Yehonatan Mazar and Yarin Sukar, arrived at a public park in Bat Yam, a city in central Israel, carrying an improvised firearm made from a staple gun fitted with a barrel and loaded with a live round. After hearing one of two young men sitting with two Jewish women speak with an Arabic accent, they decided to attack them. They assaulted one of the men, knocking him to the ground and kicking and punching him while shouting racist slurs, including ‘Arab bastard’ and ‘Arab faggot.’ The second man was also struck during the attack.
Sukar then took out the improvised firearm and pointed it at one of the victims’ upper bodies, apparently intending to shoot him at close range. Shabtai noticed and pushed Sukar’s hand away, causing the gun to discharge and strike one of the Jewish women in the leg. Shabtai and his friends continued beating the victim as he lay on the ground before leaving the park.
Mazar was later sentenced to four and a half years in prison and Sukar to five and a half years, while Shabtai’s trial was held separately.
Shabtai was convicted in a plea deal of aggravated assault. In November 2024, the Tel Aviv District Court sentenced him to nine months of community service and ordered him to pay compensation of up to 10,000 shekels (approximately $3,320) to each of his victims.
The district court judge ruled that Shabtai’s normative lifestyle and what he described as a ‘significant rehabilitation process’ justified the lighter sentence. He noted that Shabtai had formed connections with members of his rehabilitation group, including young people of Arab descent, and wrote that a prison sentence could ‘undermine’ that progress.
The prosecution appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the sentence failed to reflect the severity of a violent crime committed with a racist motive. The Supreme Court justices accepted the appeal on Tuesday, writing that such offenses ‘not only cause severe physical and property damage, they also undermine public order, sow terror and fear in the streets, and harm the delicate fabric of relations between the different sectors in the country.’
The justices added that crimes motivated by racism ‘are completely contrary to the core values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state’ and must be met with severe and deterrent punishment.