Israeli Plainclothes Police and Settlers Injure 23 Palestinian & Israeli Activists

Terror Attack by Israeli Police and Settlers Against Peaceful Demonstration
The Violence that the Guardian and BBC Consider Normal

HEB ENG EDITORS BREAKING NEWS: 23 people injured during settler attack on Palestinians and Israeli activists 23 פצועים בקרב פלסטינים ומפגיני שמאל שהותקפו ע"י מתנחלים

From: Dan Cohen (west Jerusalem)
עברית אחרי אנגלית - נא להפיץ - התמונות מותרות לפרסום

Please help in circulating the info in any way possible, since the Israeli media has not covered/ seems reluctant to cover the appalling incidents which took place today.

This morning (30/9) Israeli activists and Palestinians were attacked by settlers near the settlement of Atarot. The landowner of the plot to which the activists came in order to plant trees was also attacked by the settlers who cracked his head open, as well as attacking his wife. The two were have been hospitalized at Hadasa Ein Karem hospital.

Police officers who were present at the scene did nothing while the activists were beaten and their cameras smashed. Some of the attackers wore police shirts and carried service weapons, which attests to the fact that they are a part of the police force even though they were off duty.

Three other activists have been hospitalized at Hadassa Ein Karem and an additional three have been arrested by the police, who have NOT arrested any of the assaulting settlers, in spite of having witnessed everything.

Later this evening, more activists arrived to protest against the pogrom which had taken place earlier. They too were attacked and beaten, with stoned being thrown at them too. In spite of police presence at the scene, the police did nothing.

As a result of the second attack, 19 people have been injured, requiring medical attention, and three have been hospitalized at Hadasa Ein Karem. Again, several cameras were destroyed. Moreover, cars belonging to the activists, which were parked outside the settlement of Atarot, were damaged by the attackers, who smashed windshields and head and tail lights, as well as puncturing tires.

(photos 14 and 1: settlers attack , photos 12 and 12 : Israeli activists injured)

Please remember: most Israelis have always been and still are apathetic towards the atrocities of Israeli apartheid. Things are not likely to change, unless we advocate an institutional and economic boycott against Israel.

PS: I enclosed a letter to the main supporter of Apartheid in Israel, Jonathan Freedland, who was tweeting far and wide last week about Andy Newman's article on Gilad Atzmon attacking the left. Freedland was humiliated at the debate at the South Bank earlier this year when he failed to make any convincing case against BDS and he refused to even attend the reception afterwards, which his co-speaker Carole Gould did, because of his frustration.

I made a freudian slip in calling him Jonathan Hoffman, after the crazy co-vice-chair (they invented a new title for him!) of the Zionist Federation. But maybe it wasn't such a mistake after all!

Tony Greenstein

Letter to Jonathan Freedland

Dear Jonathan Hoffman,

You oppose boycott and behind a veneer of 'peace Zionism' have been one of those doing their utmost to attack the movement for BDS. You also, last week were tweeting about how you had managed to associate 'the left' with Gilad Atzmon, despite the fact that the Guardian backed off from what it had started almost as soon as Atzmon contacted you.

The following story demonstrates the reality of the occupation and the role of the Israeli state forces in aiding and abetting such an attack. You of course, in your pious protests about the debate you lost lost recently, have nothing to say about how to resist the open transformation of Israel into a police state as your main priority is to provide a cover for the Netanyahu/Liberman regime.

Notice how the Israeli protestors also call for BDS as the only way to restrain a state that knows no restraint. However I imagine that for a Guardian leader writer all this is a bit abstract. But then, over South Africa, you and your predecessors also found reasons why normal relations should be maintained.

In fact at one stage you supported the recognition of the Bantustans.

Tony Greenstein