Replies

Thank you Alouette for documenting your contention that in the story about the olive trees, the Palestinians fabricated an atrocity by Jewish settlers.

However, the Israeli press has reported many other incidents of Jewish settlers' unprovoked violence against neighboring people.

I first read about the incident below in The Jerusalem Report (Nov. 28th, 2005). According to that columnist, the violence described was believable enough that the Knesset authorized a military escort for local schoolchildren to protect them from the settlers.

"IDF Vs. Toddler Throttlers: At noon, after the bell rings in the school in Khirbat Atwana near the West Bank settlement of Maon in the southern Hebron hills, ten Palestinian urchins make their way past the school gate and begin to march in the direction of a military jeep that is waiting for them. Not far away, an IDF soldier doing lookout duty on the road sees them and gives the word to his company commander, “They’re on their way in your direction.” The ten children, pupils in the first through fourth grade, live in Khirbat Umm Tuba, near Maon. They make their way to the road twice daily, once from home to school and then back home from school. Each time they are escorted by a military jeep, an officer, and a contingent of soldiers and police officers. Why? Without this escort, they would be unable to make their way down the 800-meter dirt road that connects their home to their school. Were it not for the “bodyguards,” the young pupils would suffer at the hands of their neighbors, the settlers from Maon.
The Maon settlers refuse to allow their Palestinian neighbors to use the dirt road that runs near the settlement, not even the first graders among them. The only way the children are able to exercise their right to go to school is if they receive the protection of the Israel Police and the IDF. When the children reach the twisty part of the road that runs right behind the settlers’ homes they decide not to take their chances and break into a run. Eight-year-old Tarek explains, “When the army is here with us there’s nothing for us to be afraid of. But without the soldiers it’s frightening, because the settlers beat us up.” “This isn’t a standard task—it’s an ethical-moral task whose purpose is to allow the Palestinian schoolchildren to get to school every day and back home,” explained Dep. Cmdr. Ali Zamir, the commander of the Hebron police station. “We view with gravity the behavior of a small handful of settlers who do not represent the majority, who harass helpless Palestinian schoolchildren.” Zamir said that the task of protecting the children came at the expense of other tasks." (Yedioth Ahronoth, 9/8/05) http://www.southwestern.edu/~kotarskj/peace.html

However, the Israeli press has reported many other incidents of Jewish settlers' unprovoked violence

While there have been a few instances of graffiti and vandalism, and some teenage fistfights, which I do not condone, most of the egregious atrocities are exaggerations and outright fabrications.

Yediot Acharonot and Haaretz are two leftist media outlets who can never pass up a chance to take a swipe at the settlers and the religious population. Jerusalem Post is more balanced, i.e. they will run a biased story but will issue a correction if they get enough reader feedback.

You can find stories of "settler atrocities" all over the Internet--the link you provided is from some leftist's homepage--long after they have been pulled from mainstream media.

Honest Reporting and Camera do a fair job of tracking bogus media stories bashing the Jewish communities in districts the Palestinians want for an ethnically-cleansed state. But even they can't always keep up with the sheer volume of bogus atrocity tales the fill the media 24/7.

Wow, compare that to the Palestinian Police who arrested two Jews that took a wrong turn, ending up at a road block. Then took them to the center of town where everyone took turns beating them to death in the police station.

Kinda different, Jews defending Arab children from Jewish children, and Arabs who just kill people any chance they get.

Kinda like comparing an Ant to an Elephant, both are living creatures, but it is darn hard to step on an elephant and not know it.

I bet this report is crap too, because it does not make sense that the Arabs "need" to pass through a Jewish section to get to school, when all Jewish towns I have seen are built round with a fence around them to protect them from the Arabs. It's a circle the wagon effect, one tends not to circle the wagons around Indians when you are outnumbered a thousand to one.

Like most leftists story's, they tend to not pass the "sniff test" even before you dig into the package. In this case, Arabs reported violence, violence that was never witnessed, but the Knesset provided police escort in case it was true. In the story that this thread is based on, the Arabs reported trees cut down, the Knesset hopped on the band wagon and the trees were just pruned, like they were pruned every year, and reported cut down every year.

In case you have not noticed, the Knesset is the bad guys in vilifying the Jews in the politically incorrect towns that the Kenesset can sacrifice on the Altar of American subsidies. No politician gets rich with free and content subjects, they get rich siphoning off cash flow, and American subsidies make cash flow.

People living in houses they built on land they paid for and paying small taxes is not near as fattening. So a lot of fat cats tend to sell them out to the highest bidder.

That happens to be the State Department at the moment. With the standing Keesset, the Arabs could have won the war a long time ago if instead of buying guns and tanks and explosives, they would have just offered cash to sell out Jews. Sharon would be living in Tahiti in a mansion, and the bulk of the Jews would have been back in the diaspora.

Funny that Sharon is trying to create a third diaspora, must be his quest to be a godly man, for he is surely trying to be omnipotent.

I don't know anything of the circumstances in this story, but your link does not mention the Knesset. In it eight year old Tarek explains that without the soldier escort "the settlers beat us up." Not much to go on.

The Muslims are addicted to claims of victimization and fabrication of "facts." Thus it is prudent to take with skepticism reports of Jewish vandalism, violence and criminal mischief.

What I am curious about is what your expectations are. I am sure that there are incidents of Jewish mayhem on Muslims. All Jews and Jewish Israelis are not saints. Why would you expect them to be so?

Further when a murderous population, the Palestinians, repeatedly targets your family, children on buses, in malls, at discos, for death and maiming, rational thought has a way of disintegrating. From my point of view, it is miraculous that the settlers, who are constant targets of terror attempts, don't lose it more often. Not condoning just recognizing the frailties of human nature.

Further, mayhem and mischief, even beatings, are not murderous terror.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mar 28, 2002 - Rachel Gavish, 50, of Elon Moreh was one of four members of the Gavish family killed in Elon Moreh, when a Palestinian terrorist infiltrated the hilltop community near Nablus, burst into their home, and shot them shortly before 9 P.M.

She was killed along with her husband David, her son Avraham, and her father Yitzhak Kanner.

The terrorist continued to shoot from one of the rooms while neighbors and security forces returned fire. Others placed a ladder to allow family members on the top story to escape. The terrorist remained in one of the top-story rooms, until he was shot and killed by security forces.

'snip'

Rachel Gavish was buried in Elon Moreh alongside her family members. She is survived by her six children: Menashe (23), Yeshurun (2), Avigdor, (19), Tzofia (18), Leah (17), and Assaf (14).

http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Memorial/2002/2/Rachel+Gavish.htm [Elon Moreh the home of the settlers who were accused of destroying the olive trees]

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/M/Moreh.asp