Pogroms in Palestine, Settler Violence & Terror is the precursor to deportation and transfer
Last weekend there was a pogrom in Hebron. 26-year-old Yousef
Azzeh described the violence that he and other Palestinians in Hebron
experienced from Jewish settlers last weekend.
“There were 50
settlers here. There was no one here to help me. One of them punched me in the
shoulders and in the back,”
An estimated 40,000 Jews descended on Hebron. Azzeh described how:
“My head
started spinning. I ran away so that they would follow me and not come to my
house. I didn’t have any strength, and I couldn’t breathe. I fell down and
screamed and then I saw soldiers beating my friends while there were settlers
above my house,”
Israelis can freely move around Yousef Azzeh Hebron Tel Rumeida
while Palestinians are subject to continual limitations. One of Azzeh’s
neighbors is Baruch
Marzel, the far-right disciple of the neo-Nazi Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Azzeh alerted soldiers, who arrived
and whom he showed the stones that were thrown in the yard. Ten minutes after
they left, other Israeli civilians appeared and again threw stones at the
house. When he walked toward them, they hit him, he said.
The only Jews arrested were an
off-duty soldier who attacked a Border Police officer and a settler who
attacked the bodyguard of Itamar Gvir. Jews who attacked fellow Jews were
arrested because that is a crime whereas attacking Palestinians is no crime.
Soldiers described how
“We tried to
gain control over the situation and every time, Jews showed up and threw stones
and we didn’t manage to catch them... At the height of the incident, hundreds
of Jews came and started calling us Germans and spitting on us.”
Israeli forces stand guard to secure a path for settlers
‘I couldn’t breathe’:
A weekend of settler violence in Hebron
According to a
soldier, there was no real preparation for dealing with unruly settlers.
“We were warned before the event that it might happen, but we were
under pressure, working 24/7. There was no briefing on the matter. [The
settlers] felt they could do whatever they wanted. I personally hesitated to
handcuff them, or to throw a stun grenade at them, which is a legitimate means
[of crowd control]. As a policy, there was no heavy handedness against [the
settlers]. I did not see anyone being detained. There were 30,000 people here,
so hundreds [participated in the violence]. It’s only a [small] percentage, but
they managed to make a real mess.
“There are no clear orders,” the soldier continued.
“I know how to deal with Palestinians, but with Israelis I hesitate. I didn’t have the option [on Saturday]. I was with heavy equipment, and [the settlers] were throwing [stones] and then running away. If we were a bigger force, I hope I would have arrested [them], but it’s hard to say.”
That doesn’t stop Starmer, Sunak
and the political class using the IHRA misdefinition of ‘anti-Semitism’ to
describe those who call Israel a racist state as anti-Semitic. Well here we
have a good example of such racism. Is that anti-Semitic? According to the IHRA
‘yes’.
Ha’aretz described
how soldiers in Hebron said they had worked diligently to prepare the situation
on the ground for the arrival of hundreds of people. But they had not been
briefed to expect violence coming from Jews, which had not been anticipated.
One soldier described their problem:
“I know
what to do with the Palestinians,” however he hesitated regarding how to
deal with the Jews. “I’ve seen
disturbances and clashes in my [military] service, but I had never seen
anything like this.” The rioters were not local Jewish residents, he said.
“They were newly religious and marginal
youth from all over the country,” the soldier claimed.
And there you have it. Soldiers
aren’t trained to defend Palestinians against Jewish pogromists because their
duty is to protect settlers from Palestinians. Here is a clear example of how
the behaviour of soldiers is conditioned by whether someone is Jewish or Palestinian.
Racist? Perish the thought.
Masked men set Palestinian cars on fire in West Bank
In Hebron
Palestinians 'Never Seen Anything Like' Weekend Violence From Jewish
Worshippers Ha’aretz describes in
detail the constant attacks and violence from the settlers whilst the army
stood by. But when Palestinians defended themselves then they went into action.
Which was exactly what happened to Jews subject to pogroms in Europe. Israel
has become a mirror image of European anti-Semitism as racists like Starmer and
Labour Friends of Israel defend the indefensible.
But this is not a problem of the
military alone. It is their political masters who dictate that they must treat Palestinians
and Jews differently.
In December last year, Security
Minister Omar Bar-Lev condemned, under pressure from the United States, settler
violence against the Palestinians. What was the reaction of Prime Minister,
Naftali Bennett? A condemnation of the
condemnation.
Killed While Trying to Save a Family from Israeli Soldiers
“Settlers in Judea and Samaria have suffered daily from violence and
terrorism for decades,” Bennett tweeted: “They serve as a protective wall for all of us and we must protect them
in word and a deed.”
The reaction of Interior
Minister, Ayelet Shaked, a notorious racist who once
called for genocide in Gaza, was even worse. Bar-Lev was ‘confused’ for condemning settler violence.
“The settlers are the salt of the earth,” she wrote
on Twitter. “The violence that one needs to be shocked by is the dozens of
cases of the throwing of rocks and Molotov cocktails at Jews that occur every
day, just because they are Jews,
This is of course a lie. Palestinians
throw stones (against heavily armed soldiers!) because of such trivial matters
such as home demolitions, arbitrary arrests, armed incursions etc.
Fellow Yamina Minister Matan
Kahana called for Barlev to retract his statement on settler violence. MK
Bezalel Smotrich, head of the far-right Religious Zionism faction, who is
pushing to become Israel’s new ‘Defence’ Minister merely called Barlev “a bastard.”
This is from the man who called
for Jewish women giving birth to be separated from Arab women in case of
racial pollution. Now Bezalel is going
to be in charge of the ‘civilian’ military administration in the West Bank.
Anti-Palestinian violence has now been all but legalised.
Quoting Ha’aretz, the Times of Israel
admitted
that in just 10 days in October there were 100 settler attacks on Palestinians.
In recent
weeks, the security establishment has identified an alarming increase in acts
of violence by settlers throughout the West Bank,”
This massive upsurge in violence
against Palestinians has a purpose. It isn’t merely random. The aim is to force
Palestinians off the land by burning olive groves and attacking those who pick
the fruit. In almost every case where there were Israeli soldiers they stood by
and watched if not encouraged the settlers.
Masked men throw stones at Palestinians and activists in West Bank village
But for the Zionist Right (who
control two-thirds of the Knesset seats) the only violence comes from Palestinians
which they call ‘terror’. When Palestinians defend themselves the army and
police quickly move in to attack them with tear gas, rubber bullets and worse.
I have compiled a list of such
attacks to demonstrate the complicity of the Israeli state in the attacks.
These are not one-off incidents but part of a cumulative pattern whose intent
is clear – to drive Palestinians off the land as part of the overall project of
ethnically cleansing the Palestinians of the West Bank.
This violence and intimidation is
widely supported because as the ‘moderate’ ‘centrist’ former Prime Minister
Yair Lapid said,
My principle says maximum Jews on maximum land with
maximum security and with minimum Palestinians.”
Lapid was praised by Western leaders for supporting a
Palestinian state when any such state would be demilitarised, lacking any sovereignty
and subject to Israeli army incursions. But
even this parody of a Bantustan is not going to come into existence.
Ayid Mashani,
In an article There's
Only One Way to Describe This Settler Attack: A Pogrom Gideon Levy
described how on November 3
A Palestinian family was harvesting olives when a
group of settlers swooped down and attacked them with clubs, pipes and stones.
Five members of the family were hospitalized, including the 65-year-old father
of the household and one of his sons, whose shattered leg will need costly,
ongoing rehab. The 8-year-old grandson hid under the family’s pickup
Entering the home of the Mashani family in the small
town of Al-Shuyukh, north of Hebron in the West Bank, is like paying a visit to
a rehabilitation ward in a hospital. Almost every member of the family is hurt,
some remain in bandages, a few are limping and all of them have wounds to show
us – some of them quite serious.
Needless to say the Israeli Police
have done nothing. But if the roles were reversed the Palestinian attackers
would have been arrested, probably beaten up, languishing indefinitely in a
cell. And then there are some people who claim that Zionism is not racist.
In a particularly
egregious case of a settler attack, a Palestinian man had both arms broken
and then the army arrested him!
Jewish Settlers break both my father's arms and then the army arrest him
Hafez Huraini, 52, was working on his family’s land with his
son Muhammad on the outskirts of their village of at-Tuwani in Masafer Yatta,
in the southern occupied West Bank, when a group of armed Israeli settlers from
the nearby Havat
Ma’on outpost attacked them.
“Five settlers attacked them, some had guns, at least one of them had
an M16 rifle, and the others were carrying metal pipes. One of the settlers
started hitting them with the metal pipe, breaking my dad’s left arm,”
Sami Huraini, 24,
Hafez’s son, recounted to Mondoweiss.
“My dad fell to the ground, and
they kept beating him, until they broke his right arm too,” Sami said. “Then the settler with the gun started firing
live bullets in the air.”
“Dozens of soldiers arrived at the scene after the settlers called
them. My dad was lying on the ground, both his arms were broken, but the
soldiers started hitting us and pushing us back while the settlers stood behind
them,”
Hafez Huraini, beaten by settlers who broke both his arms. The Israeli army the arrested him for attacking the settlers!
Sami said
the settlers were “giving orders” to the
soldiers, telling them to arrest his father and other residents of at-Tuwani at
the scene. As the Israeli soldiers continued to push around the Palestinians,
an ambulance from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society arrived at the scene. “The EMTs started treating my dad and giving
him first aid. The whole time they were doing this the soldiers and settlers
were pushing and shoving us,” Sami said.
Mohammed Mashani, with his son Tair
“When we picked my dad up on the stretcher and tried to put him on the
ambulance, the soldiers started pushing us back, and saying they wanted to
arrest him, because the settlers said he hit them,”
he continued.
Late into
the night on Monday, the Huraini family learned through their lawyer that their
father had been taken to a detention center inside the Kiryat Arba settlement
in Hebron, where he was to undergo interrogation.
The family’s lawyer was allowed to speak to Hafez for a few minutes before he was taken in for questioning, though the lawyer was not allowed to be present during the interrogation.
According to
Sami, the army is accusing his father of attacking a settler – a crime that
could carry a sentence of several years in prison if he’s officially charged
and convicted.
“This is a
clear representation of the Apartheid system that we live under,” Sami said.
Sami said that the residents of at-Tuwani have long come
under attacks from Israeli settlers, who are rarely ever arrested or held
accountable for their crimes.
“We know from our experience that the settlers hold the power. They can
turn their attacks around on us, and the army will arrest and imprison him
[Hafez] for anything, on bogus charges based on settlers’ false testimonies,” he said.
Human rights groups, like B’Tselem, report that the army frequently colludes with settlers in their attacks on Palestinians. “Instead of taking preventive action, the Israeli authorities aid and abet the settlers in harming Palestinians and using their land,” the group said.
According to B’Tselem, since 2020, the group has documented
757 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians and their property.
In the rare case that an investigation is opened into settler
violence against Palestinians, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group that
documents incidents of settler violence in the West Bank, says the vast
majority of those investigations are closed.
The group says that 92% of investigations into ideological
crimes against Palestinians are closed with no indictment filed.
‘It was like a war zone’
Around the same time that Hafez Huraini was detained and
evacuated in an ambulance, Israeli forces arrested two other Palestinians from
Masafer Yatta who are still in custody.
Shortly after, dozens more Israeli troops raided the village
of at-Tuwani, and began a massive detention operation that would last for hours
into the early morning
“This is
all part of their ethnic cleansing plans, and their efforts to scare us,
intimidate us, and coerce us out of our homes,” Sami said,
referring to Israeli plans to force over 1,000
Palestinians in Masafer Yatta out of their homes to make way for an Israeli
firing zone.
“The
settlers can live happily while they attack us, and while the soldiers attack
us. They want to threaten us, and scare us so we stop resisting their plans,” Sami said.
“But our willpower is strong.”
As of Tuesday night local time, Israeli forces were raiding
at-Tuwani for the second night in a row, throwing tear gas and sound bombs at
peoples homes.
10 days later, after a video
emerged, the military court in Ofer released Hafez with stringent conditions,
including staying away from his own land. No such conditions were imposed on
the settlers who attacked him because, of course, they were never arrested. See
Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian man, breaking both his arms. Then the army arrested him.
Settler
invasion of Ramallah exposes PA impotence
You may remember how the ‘bubble’
of Ramallah where the PA is based was held up by Israel and the PA itself as a
showcase of how economic independence can lead to an improvement in the
situation of the Palestinians.
two boys held up by Israeli soldiers outside their homes, in Ramallah’s Al-Tireh neighborhood
Yet on October 13 Israel demonstrated
what it thought of its tame Palestinian lapdog. Israeli settlers stormed the
Al-Tireh neighborhood in Ramallah, conductingTalmudic prayers and ceremonies.
This practice, among
other strategies, has been commonly employed by religious settlers as a
means of providing the Israeli Supreme Court with legal
grounds to take over Palestinian land. The invasion of Ramallah
neighborhoods by these settlers indicates that the settler movement has become
emboldened in its goal of accelerating the ethnic
cleansing of Palestine,
Israeli troops in Jenin on September 28
The PA Prime Minister lives in the
Al-Tireh neighborhood, only a few kilometers away from the Muqata’a (the PA’s
headquarters in Ramallah), highlighting how easily the Israeli army can creep
into the main area of PA sovereignty without repercussions.
Palestinians carry the body of Raafat Issa.
Below are just some of the many
stories on the increasing violence and terror of the settlers and their
protectors in the Israeli army. With the advent of the new far-Right coalition
of Netanyahu this situation can only get worse as Israel is determined to
ensure that Area C is ethnically cleansed and that Palestinians living there
are driven off the land.
