The raids followed the killing of a family of five Israelis in Itamar settlement in Nablus overnight Friday. A three-month-old baby Hadas, Elad, 4, Yoav, 11 and their parents Udi and Ruthie were all stabbed to death in their home.
During the day settlers stormed several villages in Nablus, including Burin and Huwwara, entering homes and harassing residents. Settlers handed out leaflets threatening the lives of villagers in Beitillu, near Ramallah, and threw rocks at Palestinian cars in Hebron.
Why I fail to be impressed by the wails emanating from the religious right, in four points
The strange call for denunciation: My colleague, Dimi Reider, wrote a sensitive post, calling upon leftist activists to denounce the massacre in Itamar. A list of leftist organizations – from Peace Now to Rabbis for Human Rights – have already done so, as did the Bil’in Popular Committee against the Wall.
I must say I find this demand strange. It plays straight into the hands of the right-wingers who say the leftists are responsible for the Palestinian struggle; it dances awkwardly with Ariel’s mayor Ron Nachman’s mad waltz on the blood, in which he demanded the left be investigated for its alleged participation in the massacre. As if someone has to earnestly explain he objects to the slaughtering of infants; as if you have to explain you truly support a heavy punishment for the perpetrators, assuming they are caught and legally convicted. A denunciation is, in its way, participation in the all-too-Israeli orgy of victimization we’ve seen since yesterday morning, and your role is that of the demon who has seen the light and begs for forgiveness. No, thanks. Not from the settlers.
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| Israeli politicians are feeling the pressure as the country loses popularity around the world. |
The deaths of these innocent children can never be justified, any more than the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian children in Gaza and all over Palestine can be justified. One major difference is that the Palestinian children were all living legally with their families on land that belonged to them and to Palestine. Settler children are being used as potential human shields by parents who insist on living illegally on land that doesn’t belong to them. I wish this latest violence had not occurred. I am saddened to know that this one Palestinian was finally driven to commit such a horrendous act.
I know some of these Itamar settlers, or at least I have personally experienced their hatred and violence. The lives of local villagers had been hell for years, and by the fall of 2003 every single family in the tiny hamlet of Yanoun had fled after months of nightly raids and physical attacks by Itamar settlers. Wells had been poisoned, electrical generators destroyed. Some Israeli Jewish peace activists were dismayed that the settlers had been able to do what the Irgun and Stern gangs had done in 1948: force every single inhabitant of a Palestinian village to flee. So these Israelis, along with volunteers from ISM, promised that if the villagers would return to Yanoun they would be protected from the settlers. That’s where I came in. With a small group of volunteers I was sent to Yanoun village in October 2002 to help the handful of Palestinians who had dared return to harvest their few olive trees. On a Sunday morning we were attacked by a gang from Itamar. After they cornered and isolated me I was beaten and robbed by armed thugs screaming that this was their land and that they would kill me. They kicked me to the ground and beat me with sticks and rifle butts. They stole everything I had with me: passport, plane ticket, money, camera, credit cards, jacket. IDF soldiers parked in a jeep close by did nothing to intervene. Later I and my three fellow victims were told by the chief of police at Ariel Settlement, which controls (or supposedly controls) Itamar, that these thugs are well known to the police for their violence against Palestinian villagers in the area close to the Itamar settlement.
Anyone who wants to understand some of what the Palestinians in the area have been suffering at the hands of these Itamar crazies should read the attached report of interviews with Yanoun villagers. It’s a fascinating and beautifully illustrated piece which gives wonderful insight to the suffering endured by all the Palestinian residents of Yanoun since the creation of the Itamar settlement. The piece also includes reference to the incident in which I was personally victimized.
So when I hear talk of legalizing existing settlements as part of any peace process I know this would never work. Settlers like those at Itamar will never accept that Palestinians have the right to live in Palestine. All settlers will have to leave the land and return to Israel for there to be any kind of peace.
Rick Congress posted this on his blog, Politics, Music & Irony.
Here is the news item:Army: Palestinian Kills 5 In West Bank Settlement
by The Associated Press
March 11, 2011
The Israeli military says a Palestinian has infiltrated a Jewish West Bank settlement and killed five people.
Israeli media is reporting that the dead are all members of the same family — parents and three children.
The military says it is sweeping the area in search of the perpetrator and has set up checkpoints throughout the West Bank.
The attack early Saturday in the northern West Bank settlement of Itamar is the first of its kind in years. It marks a rare outburst of violence during a relatively calm period.
Itamar is home to some of the West Bank's most fervent settlers. The attack took place in the middle of the night against a religious community on the Jewish Sabbath.
Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren't what they seem.
The anonymity of the web gives companies and governments golden opportunities to run astroturf operations: fake grassroots campaigns that create the impression that large numbers of people are demanding or opposing particular policies. This deception is most likely to occur where the interests of companies or governments come into conflict with the interests of the public. For example, there's a long history of tobacco companies creating astroturf groups to fight attempts to regulate them.
(Thanks Jemmy)
