Rivlin blasts attack against Druse guard who served in President’s Residence

Police detain Isawiya man carrying knife near head of state’s official home.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
PRESIDENT REUVEN RIVLIN and Tommy Hasson appear in an undated picture on the head of state’s Facebook page. (photo credit: FACEBOOK)
PRESIDENT REUVEN RIVLIN and Tommy Hasson appear in an undated picture on the head of state’s Facebook page.
(photo credit: FACEBOOK)
 • By GREER FAY CASHMAN President Reuven Rivlin on Friday condemned an attack on a young Druse who recently completed his service in the IDF, serving as part of the unit under the command of the president’s military secretary in the President’s Residence.
The president wrote on his Facebook page that Tommy Hasson, who on Thursday night had been violently assaulted by a group of Jews who heard him speaking Arabic near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, had been hospitalized at the capital’s Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem.
Rivlin, who also published a photograph of himself with Hasson, wrote that he had spoken to the young man’s father and could not believe what the father told him.
The president reiterated his passionate opposition to any and all forms of racism, telling Hasson’s father “we are brothers.”
Military Secretary Brig.-Gen.
Hasson Hasson is Druse, who was previously military secretary to former president Shimon Peres, and is the first member of the Druse community to be appointed to that role.
Both Rivlin and Peres have strong ties to the community, which has produced some of the country’s finest soldiers.
Meanwhile on Friday, a young man from Isawiya, seen loitering near the President’s Residence, aroused the suspicions of a security guard who alerted a policeman at the President’s Residence. The officer apprehended the suspect who was found to be carrying a long, pointed knife. The reason for his presence in the area remained unclear.
Rivlin leaves on Sunday for New York to address the United Nations on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The special session will also be attended by Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev and philanthropist Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam Adelson, who are Yad Vashem’s largest donors.
Miriam, born in Israel, will be there not only as a supporter of Yad Vashem educational projects, but also as a second-generation Holocaust survivor.
Shalev is also scheduled to address the UN, and together with Rivlin, will open an exhibition at the UN Visitors’ Lobby, under the title “Shoah – How Was It Humanly Possible?” The exhibition, which uses texts, images and video clips to recount a comprehensive history of the Holocaust from 1933-1945, will remain on display at the UN through February 2015.