TAMAR, West Bank, June 21 — The mourners, maybe 3,000 of them, were angry. They scuffled here with the Israeli police and the army this afternoon. They bought T-shirts that read, "No Arabs, no attacks."Posted on 06/22/2002 12:48:25 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
TAMAR, West Bank, June 21 — The mourners, maybe 3,000 of them, were angry. They scuffled here with the Israeli police and the army this afternoon. They bought T-shirts that read, "No Arabs, no attacks."
Then, at the end of a week of violence, something happened that laid bare this conflict's widening circle of hate, violence and revenge. A few carloads of Jewish settlers — outraged at the deaths on Thursday night of a mother and three of her children in their own home, as well as that of a security guard — drove to a nearby village and shot an Arab man dead.
"They wanted to kill," Abdul Odeh said not long after the body of his younger brother, Adnan, 22, a stonecutter, was taken away.
Less than 24 hours separated the deaths. Less than two miles separates the Jewish settlement of Itamar and the Arab village of Burin, where Mr. Odeh lived.
But the distance between the two sides seemed vast when viewed through the lens of these dual tragedies. Even on normal days, tension is high around the settlements, where Jewish families have built homes and are expanding rapidly on what had been Palestinian land.
Today almost no one on either side spoke of compromise or of sympathy for the other's dead.
"These are people who came to our land," said Mr. Odeh, 34, a teacher and Adnan's oldest brother. "They built their homes. When someone comes into your house and steals a room, what do you do? Do you stand still?"
The talk was of warring cultures and religions. The prospect of negotiations — for a Palestinian state, even a provisional one, as President Bush is reported to be ready to propose — seemed far away.
"Don't reward terrorism," said an angry Kenny Lerner, 61, an Israeli who is a friend of the family whose members were killed at the settlement. "Don't give them a prize. We have tried." Yasir Arafat "is not interested in peace," Mr. Lerner said. "He wants war and terrorism."
Mr. Lerner had just toured the four-story house where Boaz and Rachel Shabo, married for almost 20 years, had lived. The roof was gone, its red tiles blackened and collapsed into the top floor. Six eggs lay on the kitchen counter, a few feet from a pot pocked by a bullet hole. Upstairs, a cleaner shoveled away the bloody stuffing of a child's pillow.
Mrs. Shabo, 39, recently left the job of settlement secretary and so was a well-known figure here. The night before, she had been cooking dinner and making a cake. Five of her seven children were home, the two youngest watching television, according to an uncle, when a Palestinian gunman came in the backdoor — carrying what one family friend said was 20 clips of ammunition.
It was a chaotic scene, and Lieut. Col. Yossi Idiri, the area commander for the Israeli military, said he believed that the gunman first killed three of the children downstairs, Neria, 16, Svi, 12, Avi Shai, 5, and then Mrs. Shabo. The gunman then fired out a window, killing Yossi Tuito, leader of the settlement's rapid response team, as he approached the house.
The gunman died roughly an hour later after a gunfight that ignited a fire that destroyed the house. He was shot dead after jumping from a second-floor window when Israeli special forces threw grenades into the room where he was hiding. He was identified by the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as Iyad Amin Ramaha, 19, of the Bet el-Ein refugee camp in nearby Nablus.The two other children in the house, Asa, 10, and Avia, 9, were wounded.
Colonel Idiri said he could not rule out that Israeli gunfire had killed some of the people who died in the house and that the priority had been to kill the gunman before he escaped.
As he spoke, several women from the settlement heckled him, saying that the Israeli military had not protected them. Less than a month ago, three yeshiva students were also killed by a Palestinian gunman who sneaked into Itamar, a militant settlement where residents have resisted building a strong fence, on the grounds that they should not have to wall off what they see as their own land.
"After the last attack, I told you we're in a terrible situation and there was panic," one woman said. "And you said there was no problem."
Anger at the military ran so high at the funeral that scuffles broke out between settlers and the police and the army during the eulogies. The word "vengeance" was scrawled in the windshield dust of several cars, suggesting that some contemplated taking the law into their own hands.
Dan Vered, 36, armed with a submachine gun, said no amount of fencing or armed protection would be adequate. "It will take a change in the makeup of Palestinian society," he said. "You can't preach murder and death as an ideology for 20 or 30 years and expect that generation to turn off the tap. It's a joke."
The anger spilled over as mourners left the hilltop settlement after the burials, driving south through the Arab village of Huwara, which had been under curfew since 11 a.m. to prevent any attacks from settlers. About half a dozen cars left the main road to come to the village of farms and olive trees. Residents said the settlers began throwing stones at houses, which crashed through windows, striking one woman in the forehead.
Abdul Odeh had been working inside the small family grocery with his youngest brother, but he locked the door and left when the settlers came. The settlers set two cars on fire, one of them in front of the Odeh family house, where members of the family gathered on the roof.
The two sides shouted at each other and threw stones. The settlers fired off several rounds of bullets at the house and the rooftop crowd, one of them striking Adnan Odeh in the chest. He died almost instantly, his brothers said.
"We are full of anger," said Ali Omar, 36, a Palestinian Authority police officer who is a cousin of he dead man.
Another cousin, Muhammad Salih, added: "The settlers want us to leave this country. They burned our lands, attacked our houses and kill us. They want us to leave. But we will die here and will not leave."
One of his five brothers called Adnan Odeh "a simple man" who had recently finished building a house in anticipation of getting married.
Mr. Omar, the officer, said the settlers were wrong when they said — in a refrain heard more and more often around Israel — that Palestinians would not rest until all Jews were driven out.
But, pointing out new annexes of settlements on the nearby hilltops, he said that in his view they must leave the West Bank and stop harassing Palestinians.
"We do believe there is such a thing called the Israeli state," he said. "It's a fact. You cannot deny it exists. It will exist for the next generations. But without a Palestinian state, peace and security will be a dream for Israel."
This is a lie. Which Palestinian owns this land that is used for this Israeli settlement? You will find no deed for it. Answer is none and that it's administered by the State of Israel.
Imal
I'm sorry, but killing a terrorist who just shot a woman and her children is MURDER???
You really need your meds...
I agree with you, most tit for tat killings usually involve grabbing the nearest and killing them.
The fact is the terrorist who carries out a killing is if not killed is making all tracks to a safe location.
In fact all those related to the killing or new about it would also go to ground, those who are grabbed are usualy those who are out of the loop, and so dont know that a sitaution has occured that may resualt in a revenge attack.
Joe Boucher I dont believe that you would do that, and if you mean it then you are no better than a terrorist, I agree that those who carried out a crime should be punished, but killing someone because they are in the wrong place and happend to be realted by race or religion
Would you differ between a man woman and child, everyone does at first but after a while they dont, as I have experience of.
Tony
Cheers Tony
Murder and maiming of hundreds of Jewish children and women in the most horrific ways by beastly Arabs go on almost unnoticed.
Whatever the politics and boundaries and issues are, whatever things end up as, the Palestinians are going to pay a dear price for this one. It's like picking up a sharp knife at the wrong end.
I do understand that mob mentality can mitigate this violence in the legal sense, and people do crazy things in a mob. But with a little objectivity you have to realize that murdering people just because they are on the other side and available to be killed is just plain wrong.
At the same time, I can understand how even rational people can justify it by believing that they will have to behave just like their enemies in order to win. It was only a matter of time before this started to happen. Maybe it will turn the tide and eventually cause the Palestinians to want to stop the violence. Or, maybe it will result in another revenge killing.
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