Remember little Lucas Koerner, the pro palestinian activist who decided to walk around Jerusalem (on Jerusalem Day) wearing a Kaffiyeh and skullcap with palestinian flag pin, refuse to show his ID to Israeli policemen when asked, and then allegedly bite a policeman?
His 15 minutes of fame have been extended by an interview with the Palestine News Network, an interview which gives an added insight into just how dishonest little Lucas truly is.
For a start, he admits his refusal to hand over his passport may have been illegal, but claims this was not the reason for his arrest.
Many of the commenters on the videos of your arrest in Jerusalem have been positive, but there have been critical ones as well. From those comments, there seems to be a common thread of disbelief about what preceded such a violent reaction. Can you explain what occurred during those few minutes that the camera does not see?
One of the most prevalent misconceptions regarding the video concerns the time frame within which the events of my arrest occurred. The scene at the opening of the video showing my interview by journalists and my subsequent harassment by the police, demanding my passport, occurred approximately forty-five minutes to an hour before the actual arrest shown in the final moments.
Ignorant of such a time lapse, many incorrectly place my violent arrest as the logical outcome of my refusal to hand over my passport.
I initially refused to hand over my passport on the grounds that I was doing nothing illegal and that I did not want the police to take down my information, for fear of trouble later. Whether or not I was justified in refusing their request for my passport (I do not know the legal details) is entirely irrelevant to the circumstance of my actual arrest forty-five minutes later.
At the later time, I was seized without warning of any kind and without request for my passport, while I was peacefully on a sidewalk in the middle of a peaceful crowd.
Therefore, I was targeted, not for the bureaucratic reason of not producing my passport, but on political grounds: observing the extensive press coverage I was receiving and angered by the fact of my being a Jewish man speaking out on behalf of Palestinian rights, the police mistakenly believed I was the “ring leader” of this “orchestrated” demonstration.
They simply could not assimilate into their narrow schema the idea of people of conscience spontaneously mobilizing to demand justice.
Notice how he concocts a whole story as to why he was arrested, despite the fact he behaved illegally, which justified his arrest.
Little Lucas also invents a story of Israeli racism, during which he admits Israeli-Arabs are employed as policemen in the same breath as he accuses Israel of being an apartheid regime.
-Following your arrest why did you ask to be held in the Palestinian section of the prison rather than the Jewish one given the fact that the conditions were so much better in the one they placed you in?
Well, to be honest, when first asked my preference, I replied Jewish. I was scared and, didn’t have very much time to think. My first impulse was a cowardly one: to take the road of least resistance, which in this case was through the Jewish-only cell.
Upon hearing that, my police interrogator, believing that I shared their fear of Arabs, announced that I would be detained in the Palestinian cell, adding that he hoped I would enjoy my stay with “Ali Al Qaeda”. He made this overly racist remark, presupposing the equivalency of Palestinians to terrorists, right in front of the Palestinian-Israeli policeman sitting across from me.
In the subsequent moments, I changed my mind. Of course I would want to be in the Palestinian cell! How could there be any other choice but to stand in solidarity with the oppressed?
Regaining my courage, I willingly affirmed that I was to be put in the Palestinian cell. I now had the opportunity to break Israel’s apartheid regime from the inside, or so I thought.
Did it occur to little Lucas that the policeman may have been referring to a specific terrorist or group of terrorists, rather than generalizing about all palestinians? Of course not, since to him, Israel is evil personified.
Not to mention the arresting policeman, who little Lucas claims has a reputation.
In fact, the cop who grabbed me on the sidewalk has a reputation as a true fascist among the Sheik Jarrah activists.
Meanwhile, little Lucas invokes his inner Schwartznegger in threatening to be back soon, presumably by duplicitous means.
-According to Israeli government officials you will be immediately arrested if you choose to return to Israel and Palestine in the future. Do you have any plans to do so in the future? If so, what preparations have you made or will you have to make to face the charges brought against you by the state?
Well for starters, I believe that in that statement, the Jerusalem police spokesperson was bluffing.
I was never formally charged, nor officially deported. The police have no evidence of any wrongdoing on my part. Moreover, it is not, from what I have gathered, Israeli practice to arrest and charge international activists, but simply to deny them entry into the country in the first place.
For these reasons, I believe the primary barrier to my entry is a “security” one, not a legal one: it is highly probable that my name has been placed on the blacklist and that I have joined the company of Norman Finkelstein, Richard Falk, and Noam Chomsky in being denied entry to the state of Israel on the grounds of posing a “security threat.”
In spite of all this, I do, however, intend to return to Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories. How I will do this, I will not disclose at this time.
Here’s hoping if little Lucas dares come back to Israel, he ends up bunking with big Bubba.
