At approximately 2 pm (the 6th August) two internationals observed a group of 6 Israeli settler girls between the ages of 12 and 18 harassing and intimidating Palestinian residents as they walked along a Palestinian road in Tel Rumada. They were observed spitting in the face of a baby being carried by a family member, and insulting Palestinians with language so abusive that a soldier attempted to remove them from the area. The soldier was immediately chastised by his commanding officer, and the girls continued to walk along the road unabated, threatening residents by lunging and stamping as if about to hit them.
Author: ISM Media Group
Hebron: Masked Settlers Attack Human Rights Worker
At approximately 1 pm (the 6th August) around 8 Israeli settlers were seen, by an international human rights worker, covering their faces on the edge of Tel Rumada settlement. They then exited the settlement and carried out a targeted attack on a human rights observer monitoring a check point. The settlers brought the HRW to the ground kicking and punching him, then continued to kick and punch him repeatedly.
Two observing soldiers made some attempt to stop the attack, but this amounted only to feeble requests to stop and was accompaninied with very little physical intervention. About 5 minutes after the attack began two other HRW’s arrived, followed closely by 3 soldiers and managed to bring the violence to an end. The HRW’s camera was stolen in the attack meaning there was no independent footage of the incident.
Despite this gratuitous violence and that the attackers were still in possession of stolen property, the attackers, still with their faces covered, were escorted back to their settlement before the police could arrive.
Haaretz: A visit to the jungle
Last week the prime minister congratulated Ariel College for being elevated by the Judea and Samaria Council of Higher Education to university status. Today, Ehud Olmert is traveling to Jericho, in order to hold talks with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, on an agreement of principles (and perhaps even “agreed-upon principles”) for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
According to all maps, including those of our American friends, the land on which the new university sits is supposed to be an inalienable part of the new Palestinian state. How, then, should the common Palestinian citizen interpret the news about the upgrading of the large Israeli college in the very heart of the West Bank? What value could Olmert’s promise to Abbas, that he will further a peace accord that will bring about an end to Israeli occupation, have in the Palestinians’ eyes?
It is conceivable that the prime minister had no ill intentions. Olmert, like most Israelis, has become accustomed over the past 40 years to living in a world of double meanings. Throughout history, Israeli governments have extended one hand “to peace with the Arabs” while the other hand lays further claim to the occupied territories. In order to maintain the industry of contradictions between what is said and what is done, legal experts constructed a splendid system of overpasses for the politicians. These allow the de facto annexation of Palestinian land, without the need to annex Palestinian residents.
The Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria is one of these inventions. It is meant to enable the establishment and development of an Israeli academic institution outside the sovereign territory of the State of Israel. On the one hand the Ministry of Education recognizes the degrees the council grants and the educational programs it approves. On the other hand, the education minister declared recently that the council’s decision to upgrade the college is not valid.
The collapse of the Heftsiba construction company sheds light – more precisely, casts a heavy shadow – on the method that enables Israel to talk of peace while continuing to settle the territories. The system of planning and construction regulations was created in line with the requirements of dubious Jewish land salesmen, real estate companies owned by the settlers’ leadership, and Palestinian front men who are ready to sell their homeland for a money. The petition to the High Court of Justice filed by the residents of the village of Bil’in and Peace Now stopped the construction in Matityahu East, a new neighborhood in the settlement of Modi’in Illit. The case brought to the fore a terrible phenomenon, in which the State Prosecutor’s Office, the local authority and the Civil Administration cooperated – some of them actively and others by turning a blind eye – with a well-oiled system that stole and “laundered” Palestinian properties. Several dozen meters away, inside Israeli territory, no contractor would have gotten away with building hundreds of apartments without the necessary blueprints, building permits, and a basic examination of land ownership documents.
The politicians’ mixed signals are complemented by the double standards of law enforcement that enable the settlers, the true rulers of the territories, to make talk of “a political settlement” appear ridiculous. Only there is it possible for a GOC Central Command to authorize a convicted murderer, someone like Menachem Livni, a member of the Jewish underground – convicted to life imprisonment but released after seven years – to carry an M-16 rifle. Only in this land of free-for-all can the vice president of the Magistrate’s Court exonerate Livni, who shot at a Palestinian truck. In the recent Supreme Court ruling affirming Livni’s conviction by the District Court, Justice Edmond Levy wrote that “this reality should not be accepted, even though it takes place far from the eyes of the general public, in areas beyond the Green Line, and where it is often regarded with unacceptable forgiveness. After all, no one would allow someone within the territory of the State of Israel to carry out such an act against his neighbors, irrespective of their national identity, and remain impervious to the law.”
This rare observation reminds us of Ehud Barak’s cute metaphor, that Israel is a “villa in a jungle.” Regarding the comparison to a villa, one can argue one way or the other, but so long as the defense minister and others in the defense, political and legal establishments continue to relate to the territories around Ariel as a jungle – the prime minister can save himself a trip to Jericho in the burning August heat.
Hebron: Settlers Suspected as Qurdoba School is Set Ablaze
August 6, 2007 12:20pm
At 12:20pm international human right workers received a call from a local Palestinian coordinator that a section of Quartaba Girls School had been set on fire by Israeli settlers. Quartaba girls school is located directly across from Beit Hadassah settlement.
When internationals arrived Palestinian residents were present as well as an Israeli policeman. They found that the back screen door, which is a metal frame, had been peeled up. This was how the Israeli settlers managed to enter the school without being seen.
The settlers had placed the metal frame of a bed on top of a table and set fire to it, along with pictures of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The burning effigy was placed directly in front of a metal door that the children and teachers use to enter the school.
The fire had been burning for about 10 minutes before nearby Palestinian residents came with buckets of water and managed to put the fire out and keep it from spreading.
The internationals documented the scene and were told by the Palestinians that an electricity wire had been cut above the fire. It was apparent that this fire was started by adult settlers as the act was quite methodical and symbolic in the way it was laid out, with the pictures (of the Dome of the Rock), and the way they broke into the school. They also managed to commit the act undetected by Palestinians which no settler child could accomplish, and leads one to suspect that the act must have been planned and coordinated.
Israeli soldiers also later came to survey the scene, and at one point actually said that, for all they knew, it could have been Palestinians who had started the fire. They said that their was no solid evidence that it was Israeli settlers who had started the fire. This was obviously completely wrong, and offensive, since no Muslim would burn pictures of the Dome of the Rock or set fire to a Palestinian girls school. The only people who had motive to start the fire are Israeli settlers, who have in the past frequently attacked the schoolgirls and the school itself.
After ten more minutes the door to the school was opened and the windows inside were opened in order to release the smoke trapped inside the school.
Except for smoke damage, which was quiet extensive, there appeared to be no more damage to the school except for the cut electricity cable which will have to be repaired.
Hebron: Settlers and Military Collude for Attacks against Palestinians and International Human Rights Workers
August 5th, 2007.
At aproxamatly 10:30pm five international human rights workers received a call from a Palestinian coordinator that some Palestinians had been attacked by Israeli settlers, and detained by Israeli soldiers, next to an illegal settler occupied house located near Kirat Arba settlement. This house was squatted, illegally, by Israeli settlers some months ago and the Palestinian homes surrounding this occupied house are under constant attack, and harassment by the Israeli settler inhabitants.
At about 9:45pm many Palestinian worshippers were inside the Mosque, which is located directly next to the Israeli occupied house. While the Palestinians were leaving the Mosque Israeli settlers began to throw stones on the Mosque, the Palestinians, and Palestinian vehicals. Some vehicals were badly damaged, and some Palestinian also were hit with stones multiple times.
Israeli soldiers were present WITH the settlers during the entire attack but did nothing to prevent the Israeli settlers from continuing there attack.
Some Palestinians, from far away, began to throw stones back at some Israeli settlers who were attacking their homes. The army then detained five to six Palestinian men who they would then charge with throwing stones at Israelis.
It is unclear as to whether the men who were detained were the same men that had thrown stones at the Israeli settlers, who were attacking them, and the soldiers who were standing by not stopping the attack. Some Palestinians said that they were different men, while the army said it was the same men.
Either way it is indicitive of Israeli justice to arrest those who defend themselves while being attacked, while their property, and very lives are at stake, while allowing those who perputrate the attack to go unpunished. If the Palestinians did not defend themselves against the settlers, while the army is supporting them by refusing to stop the attack, there is no limit to what destruction the Israeli settlers may carry out. It is a trait so common in Hebron within Israeli justice (or injustice): those who perputrate the attack go unpunished, while the victims are often punished and harrassed severly to add to the strain and humilation of having just been attacked.
When the internationals arrived at the home they found a large group of Palestinians waiting, and watching, as the five to six detained Palestinian men were made to sit against a stone wall. Some of the men were quite young and in their teenage years. These men were being detained and charged with throwing stones at Israeli soldiers (who were standing with the Israeli settlers as they attacked Palestinians), and were soon to be taken to Kiryat Arba police station. Four to five Israeli settlers were also present and immediately began to take pictures of the internationals.
The internationals intervened and began to speak with the soldiers. One international gave the detained Palestinian men water which they immediately began to drink because they were very thirsty. The soldiers however would not let the internationals approach the detained Palestinian men after this. The soldiers kept telling the internationals to go away and refused to answer most of the questions that were asked of them.
Suddenly the soldiers decided to load the detained Palestinian men into the back of an Israeli IOF jeep. The internationals began to follow, trying to film the incident, but were held back by the army.
At this point a Palestinian woman, who was the mother of one of the detained men, began to run forward: yelling for her son. This created a gap for the internationals to pass, and the internationals were able to approach the IOF jeep. At this point the internationals gathered around the Palestinian woman and some Palestinian men, as the soldiers were exerting force on the Palestinians to remove them from the vicinity of the jeep. The soldiers actually pushed the Palestinian woman, who was crying for her son, and an older man, trying to make them leave. The woman fell to the ground as the soldier pushed her, while some of the internationals got in-between the soldiers who were pushing the Palestinians.
The entire time the soldiers were physically pushing and pulling the internationals trying to make them leave the scene as well as the Palestinians.
Finally the woman, who was on the ground crying for her son, got up, still crying, yelling and appealing to the soldiers to release her son. The soldiers told the Palestinians that they were calling the police and they would not take the detained men anywhere until they arrived. The Palestinians then left the immediate area, under the soldiers orders, satisfied with this promise that the soldiers would wait for the police.
The soldiers then told the internationals that they should also leave the area, behind the jeep, but the internationals refused saying that they would not until the police arrived. The internationals feared that if they left, and stopped blocking the jeep from leaving, the soldiers would take the detained men to the police station.
After about five minutes the soldiers suddenly began to grab and pull the internationals; physically trying to make them leave the back of the jeep so that it could leave. Two internationals were forced to the ground and were surrounded by six soldiers while the three others were immediately pulled away.
The two internationals on the ground, who were still behind the jeep, were forced apart by a soldier that grabbed one of the internationals and twisted his wrist, almost breaking his arm. The soldiers then pulled the other international away who was struggling with the soldiers, on the ground, and trying to grab onto the jeep.
Unfortuantly during this time the internationals camera stopped recording as it was hit against the ground (the international was having his arm twisted by a soldier) and turned off. No footage of the attack by soldiers was taken.
For about two or three minutes the internationals struggled with the soldiers who physically restrained them. During the entire incident Israeli settlers, who were present, also began to take part in attacking the internationals. One settler tried to kick and punch an international while he was struggling with soldiers, on his back, on the ground.. Another Israeli settler tried to steal the camera of an international while she struggled with a soldier. The soldiers did nothing to restrain the settlers while they committed these acts.
Unfortunatly the jeep managed to make it away as five internationals stood no chance against twelve to fifteen Israeli soldiers.
At that point, after the jeep had left, the internationals were detained and forced to wait for the police. One soldier in particular kept trying to force the internationals to sit down or stay in one place, still pushing them around after they had just been assaulted by the soldiers. The Israeli settlers also present tried to taunt the internationals.
After about fifteen more minutes the police finally arrived and the soldiers spoke with them. The internationals then spoke with the police and found, to their surprise, that they were allowed to leave the area. The internationals thought that at least a few of them would be arressted.
Apparently the soldiers did not want the police to know of the incident that just occurred, for obvious reasons, as they had just attacked the internationals. When internationals tried to explain the situation to the police the police kept changing the subject telling the internationals that they had aggravated the situation. When the internationals said that they wanted to file a complaint against the soldier treatment, and abuse, the policeman said that they could not take any complaint against the army, as this was not their jurisdiction. Then the police left the area.
At this point it was about 11:40pm. The internationals were made to walk home after a brief interaction with the Israeli settlers. One settler actually demanded to see one internationals passport, who of course refused, later trying to attack one international who had a camera.
They then tried to take pictures of the internationals and intimidate them. When the internationals left the area an Israeli settlers threw one stone which almost hit one international in the head.
The internationals then spoke breifly with the the Palestinian familes who confirmed that they had indeed been attacked by Israeli settlers, for no reason, upon leaving the Mosque. One of the Palestinian cars was badly damaged by a settler stone which shattered the front windshield.
It was found later that the detained Palestinian men were arrested, charged and taken to Asyoun prison.