Not an accident: Bedouin who ran over teen charged with terror

The driver was angry that a Jew had called him “Arab trash.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The State Attorney’s Office decided Monday to indict a Bedouin man who ran over an IDF cadet last month in Beersheba, charging him with terrorism.

On November 24, Amir Al-Karinawi (39) of Rahat drove his car onto the sidewalk and into a lone pedestrian who was in IDF uniform. The unnamed 18-year-old cadet, who attended the air force’s technical school in the city, was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries to his limbs.

After the arrest, Al-Karinawi first claimed that it was merely an accident, but security camera footage on site showed that the car deliberately swerved from the street into the victim.

The police uncovered a nationalistic motivation for an attack very quickly, which led them to turn over Al-Karinawi to the Shabak security service.

The Rahat resident had posted videos to TikTok in the days before the ramming, the prosecution said, starting with an incident in which a Jewish driver called him “Arab trash” after they had clashed over a parking spot. Al-Karinawi got out and spit on the man, who then said, “You deserve a bullet in the head.”

They argued more, and Al-Karinawi filmed part of it before calling the police, saying he was “threatened with being shot with a gun.” The prosecution said he was also angered by the way the police treated the incident.

He then posted two more TikTok clips, saying in the first that the Bedouin had to “be ready for any threat, every person has to protect himself, we’re in a racist country.” In the next video he said, “The time will come when I’ll take what’s coming to me. Our honor in this country… life will be cheap for him.”

According to the indictment, all this led to his decision to carry out a ramming attack specifically against a Jew, “and cause his death, out of a nationalist motive and with the aim of inciting fear or panic in the public.”

Al-Karinawi intentionally hit the accelerator before swerving sharply into his victim, who is identified by his initial M. He drove another 200 meters, then stopped his car, got out and lay on the road until police and rescue units arrived.

The charges against Al-Karinawi include attempted murder and aggravated assault.

A few days after the attack, Prof. Alian Al-Karinawi, a relative, told Ynet Radio that his clan “is one of the most respected families in Israel, it’s a family that is connected to the state in every sense of the word” and “fights extremism.”

He theorized that perhaps the incidents his relative described on video had pushed him over the edge and that he had simply “gone crazy,” and he asked for people not to blame the entire tribe or all Bedouin for one man’s actions. He then called for both Jews and Bedouin to learn more about each other in order to promote understanding and friendship .