Israeli Settlers Threaten To Make Palestinians ‘Pay The Price’ Over West Bank

Radical Israeli settlers are threatening to unleash a campaign of violence against their Palestinian neighbours after a government order suspended construction of Jewish homes in the occupied West Bank.

Mounting discontent over the building ban, announced at the end of November, has already manifested itself in a series of scuffles between egg-throwing settlers and Israeli police officers.
But this week hardline Jewish activists have signalled a change of tactic by circulating calls for Palestinian civilians to pay the price for the settlement freeze.

In a chilling statement of intent the residents of Yitzhar, a settlement with a reputation for radicalism, warned they would inflict damage to “Arab property as well as to their bodies” if government inspectors attempted to enforce the freeze.
“If there is no quiet for the Jews, there shall be no quiet for the Arabs,” said a statement posted on a settler website. “If Arabs are victorious due to their violence against the Jews, the Jews shall also be victorious due to violence against Arabs.”

The threat comes amid plans for a show of force in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, when thousands of West Bank settlers are expected to demonstrate their anger outside the residence of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
Under American pressure, he announced a 10-month moratorium on new settler construction in the West Bank – a gesture that was immediately rejected by the Palestinian leadership as too paltry to resume stalled peace negotiations.
But for the West Bank’s 300,000 Jewish settlers, the freeze represented a betrayal of Mr Netanyahu’s Right-wing principles – even though critics say the moratorium will do little to slow the rate of construction because it gave permission for building on 3,000 homes to continue.

As settlers have mobilised to prevent access to inspectors seeking to monitor the freeze, some incidents of violence against Palestinians have already been reported. Several Palestinian tractors and cars have been set alight and one house came under fire.
Palestinians like Hanan Sufan and her five-year-old grandson Baha’a are bracing for the worst. Mrs Sufan keeps her livestock in a cellar at her isolated farmhouse, surrounded by razor wire in the village of Burin. On many nights, she said, Baha’a wakes in terror.
The men of Yitzhar have allegedly attacked the Sufan family home for years. Mrs Sufan claimed they had poisoned her sheep, burned farm vehicles, rustled a donkey, slit the throat of another, set ablaze olive groves and barley fields and even started a fire inside her house.

They came again last month, she said, waving their rifles, setting tyres alight and throwing Molotov cocktails at the windows during a nine-hour siege.

Jewish settlers have been accused in the past of violence against Palestinians, partly in an attempt to force them out of the West Bank – territory some believe was promised by God to the Jews for ever.

But some of the attacks are part of another tradition called “the price tag”. When Israeli authorities carry out acts unpopular with the settlers, such as demolishing homes ruled illegal by the Jewish state, the settlers take their revenge by ensuring that nearby Palestinians pay the price.

Often, these revenge attacks take the form of fires started on Palestinian olive groves.
“When it does happen, it is aimed against the [Israeli] army rather than against the Arabs,” said Daniella Weiss, a settler leader.
With signs that such attacks are now likely to become more common, Mrs Sufan and her family know they must fear the worst.
Even so, she refuses to be budged from her home.

“They are crazy people,” she said. “In the beginning they used to scare me, but not anymore.But the boy is scared. He cries and says he wants to leave. We tell him, where should we go? We have nowhere to go.”

The article, as written by Adrian Blomfield in Burin, can be found at The Telegraph entitled: “Israeli settlers threaten to make Palestinians ‘pay the price’ on the West Bank”

The US cash behind extremist settlers

The Hebron Fund is raising vast sums for Israeli settlements that violate the Geneva convention, with little scrutiny

Andrew Kadi and Aaron Levitt

Last month, a Brooklyn-based non-profit organisation called the Hebron Fund, which supports Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied city of Hebron, held a fundraiser at the New York Mets' stadium, Citi Field.

The fundraiser went forward despite calls for its cancellation from grassroots human rights organisations from the US, Palestine and Israel. The fact that the Hebron Fund likely raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for extremist Israeli settlers at a major US venue with little public scrutiny is a troubling sign for those who hope that the US can play a constructive role in achieving a just peace in the Middle East.

Perhaps more worryingly, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius: "A search of IRS records identified 28 US charitable groups that made a total of $33.4m in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organisations between 2004 and 2007." Some of the larger organisations, including Friends of the Ateret Cohanim and Friends of Ir David, both leading the Jewish settler takeover of Palestinian East Jerusalem, are based in New York City.

Israeli settlements violate the Geneva convention's prohibition against an occupying power transferring its population into occupied territory, and Israeli settlement expansion directly contradicts the US call for a settlement freeze.

Hebron's Jewish settlers, who are supported by the Hebron Fund, are openly fundraising in New York City. Under the protection of the Israeli military, they are expanding settlements in Hebron's Old City and driving out the Palestinian residents.

The Hebron Fund's extremist positions are clear. Hebron Fund executive director Yossi Baumol told The American Prospect that "[d]emocracy is poison to Arabs", "Israel must not give Arabs a say in how the country is run" and "[y]ou'll never get the truth out of an Arab". Hebron's chief rabbi, Dov Lior, a featured participant in some Hebron Fund events, recently praised a new book that says it is permitted for a Jew to kill civilians who provide moral support to an enemy of the Jews, and to even kill young children, if it is foreseeable that they will grow up to become enemies.

Settlers and the Israeli army routinely attack and terrorise Palestinians in Hebron, according to human rights groups such as B'Tselem in Israel. In 1994, Hebron settler Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 unarmed Palestinians who were praying in a Hebron mosque. One of the honorees at the 2009 Hebron Fund dinner, Noam Arnon, called Goldstein "an extraordinary person'' in 1995. In 1990 Arnon called three Jewish terrorists who were convicted of killing three Palestinians and maiming two Palestinian mayors "heroes".

Though the Hebron Fund tells the IRS that its purpose is to "promote social and educational wellbeing", in 2008 Baumol assured New York radio listeners: "There are real facts on the ground that are created by people helping the Hebron Fund and coming to our dinners."

A 2007 appeal explained: "Dozens of new families can now come live in Hebron ... waiting for you to be their partners in the redemption of Hebron."

Baumol dedicated the 2009 fundraiser to protesting at "racist limitations, led by President Barack Obama on Jewish growth".

Settlers frequently claim that preventing Jews from living anywhere they want in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is "racist", regardless of the settlers' severe infringement on the rights of longstanding Palestinian residents. Settlers justify their takeover of Hebron by invoking the massacre of 67 Jewish residents of Hebron by Palestinians in 1929. But rather than equality, Hebron's settlers aim for superior rights enforced from the barrel of a gun.

Non-profit organisations like the Hebron Fund play a substantial role in fuelling the Middle East conflict, but largely fly under the radar in the US. They brazenly hold public fundraisers, and the media generally ignore them. Major US advocacy organisations that claim to oppose Israeli settlements typically fail to criticise them. In one rare mainstream media report, David Ignatius highlighted the US government's self-defeating policy, writing that "critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns".

Until the public, advocacy groups, media and the US government scrutinise and rein in settlement non-profits like the Hebron Fund, policy statements about peace in the Middle East will do nothing to stop the daily violence and dispossession suffered by Palestinians.

• Andrew Kadi is an IT professional and a member of the Middle East rights organisation, Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East. Aaron Levitt has volunteered as a human rights monitor in Hebron and is a member of Jews Against the Occupation-NYC

SOLDIERS LOOK ON AS SETTLERS CONTINUE TO TERRORIZE

Judeo-Nazi settlers rampage through West Bank, IOF looks on

Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine

Nazi-minded Jewish settlers continued to rampage throughout the West Bank, terrorizing unprotected Palestinian citizens and vandalizing their property.

Settler leaders, mostly rabbis erudite in Jewish law or Halacha, had ruled that it was permissible to attack Palestinians and their property in order to protest token government decisions to freeze Jewish settlement expansion in some parts of the occupied territories.

In the West Bank villages of Jourtel Shama’a and Um Salmouna near Bethlehem Jewish settlers carrying automatic rifles on Sunday cut off and then set on fire as many as 50 grown olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers.

The farmers, including owners of the destroyed trees, charged that the Israeli occupation army did nothing to stop the settlers.

“The settlers and the occupation army soldiers are the same. The settlers do their dirty work, and the soldiers look on, that is all” said one farmer.

“Those who tell you that the settlers are committing their crimes in spite of the army are liars. There is a total tacit coordination between the two sides.”

Religious settlers indoctrinated in Jewish supremacy believe that Palestine was given to them by God and are convinced that non-Jews have no right to live in the land unless they convert to Judaism or accept a drastically inferior status as water carriers and wood hewers in the service of Jews.

The settlers, who act on religious edicts issued by settlement rabbis, routinely destroy Palestinian olive trees, especially in the vicinity of illegal colonies established on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law.

The settlers hope that the elimination of Palestinian olive groves would force many Palestinians to relocate or even emigrate for good, which would enable the settlers to take over Palestinian land.

Many Palestinian families rely on olive oil for their livelihood and economic survival.

In the village of Aynabus in the northern West Bank , Jewish settlers on Sunday attacked and vandalized two Arab-owned stores and agricultural machinery.

The settlers said they were protesting an earlier decision by the government of Benyamin Netanyahu to freeze the expansion of Jewish-only settlements for ten months.

The decision doesn’t cover East Jerusalem nor the vast bulk of settlements and is widely viewed as a public relations maneuver aimed at placating the American administration.

Indeed, less than 24 hours after the decision was taken, the Israeli occupation authorities decided to build dozens of settler units and “public buildings” in the West Bank.

Some Israeli journalists and columnists have described the decision to freeze settlement expansion as a mere “show” that is being acted out in coordination between the settlers on the one side and the Israeli government and occupation army on the other.

The Netanyahu government used the “important step” for Hasbara (propaganda) purposes, arguing that the proverbial ball was now in the Palestinian court and that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had no excuse not to return to the negotiating table.

Similarly, Jewish settlers in the heart of al-Khalil hurled stones on Arab worshipers frequenting the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Wakf official Zayd Jabari accused the Israeli occupation army of acting as “enabler and protector of Jewish terror against our people.”

“The Israeli occupation army tells the world that it is maintaining a presence in this city in order to protect Jews and maintain law and order. But what the army is doing in reality is to enable the settlers to attack Palestinian civilians and sabotage their businesses and property.

Another Arab citizen described the settlers as the “head of the snake” and the army as “its tail.”

On Saturday, the Israeli occupation army allowed dozens of fanatical settlers to walk through the Jabari neighborhood in what local residents described as a provocative march.

In 1994, a Jewish terrorist who had immigrated from the US murdered at least 29 Palestinian worshipers as they were praying at the Ibrahimi Mosque.

The settlers openly demand the ethnic cleansing of all non-Jews from occupied Palestine .

Observers in occupied Palestine contend Israeli government and army flaccidity have emboldened settlers, encouraging them to carry out more daring attacks on Palestinians.

More to the point, the Israeli justice system’s soft-glove approach toward the settlers is also communicating a clear message, namely that the settlers could attack the Palestinians and destroy their property without having to worry about consequences.

Palestinian sources have warned that continued attacks and acts of vandalism by Jewish settlers against Palestinian citizens and their property might draw violent reactions.

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/soldiers-look-on-as-settlers-continue-to-terrorize/

TUESDAY’S ISRATOON ~~ NETANYAHU AND THE SETTLEMENTS

Netanyahu and the settlements…..

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

Rabbi Allows Stealing Palestinian Crops,Poisoning Palestinian Water

Terrorist Jewish Squatters steal Palestinian Olive Harvest

The PA agriculture ministry has strongly condemned Sunday a new religious edict issued by a rabbi allowing Israeli settlers to steal Palestinian olive crops and to poison Palestinian water.

Mohsen Abu Eita, the ministry’s under-secretary for natural resources, asserted in a statement that Israeli rabbis permit the settlers to steal the Palestinian olive trees and crops alleging that the land that the Palestinians were cultivating belongs to the Jews.

Earlier, the fanatic rabbi Dov Lior, the chairman of the settlements’ council in the West Bank, allowed the settlers to poison the Palestinian livestock and water near their settlements.

According to Abu Eita, the Israeli settlers carry out the teachings of their rabbis in this regard perfectly as they usurp Palestinian crops and cattle, and poison Palestinian pastures on daily basis leading to the expiration of many farm animals.

Palestinian records, according to Abu Eita, show that the Israeli occupation troops destroyed more than 14,000 olive trees in the West Bank throughout the year in order to expand Israeli settlements.

In Gaza Strip, Abu Eita explained that nearly 173,000 olive trees were destroyed in addition to uprooting more than 20,000 dunums (1 dunum = 1000 sq. meter) during the war on Gaza gravely affecting at least 9,000 Palestinian farmers, and leading to 587 million dollars losses in agriculture and fisheries sectors in addition to water wells.

“These kinds of edicts, including edicts allowing the killing of Palestinian infants, reflect the Zionist racist mentality that allows stealing property of others without paying any attention to heavenly and earthly laws that oppose such edicts,” he added.

In this regard, Abu Eita urged the Vatican, the UN, the UNICEF, and human rights organizations among other influential groups to immediately intervene to protect Palestinian farmers, especially in the West Bank.

Shlomo Sand Interview:Jews Have No Claim To Palestine,Palestinians More Likely To Be Israelites

Palestinian Woman Suffers A Stroke After Settlers Invade Her Family’s House

On Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:00am, five settlers and settler security, who are currently occupying the Gawi family house in Sheikh Jarrah, attempted to take over a section of a house belonging to the Palestinian al-Kurd family.

[Pictured to the left is one of the settlers who violently attacked Maysa and Munjad al-Kurd]

The Israeli police were alerted immediately, however, before they managed to arrive, the settlers started attacking the Palestinians living in the house. One settler violently pushed a member of the al-Kurd family, Maysa, against a wall and thereafter grabbed her son, Munjad, by the lapel. After their arrival and a long discussion with the al-Kurd family concerning the legal status of the house, the Israeli police reluctantly escorted the settlers out.

As a result of the tumult, Refka Kurd, 85, suffered a stroke. She was taken to a hospital and is in stable condition.

This is the third settler incursion into the al-Kurd family house in the last three weeks. Both the border police, equipped with automatic weapons, and the Israeli police who arrived at the scene, seemed to have been convinced about the settlers’ right to enter the house and determined to allow them to remain on the premises. After a long discussion with the family and the settlers, who claimed to have legal documents giving them the right to enter the house, the Israeli forces ordered the settlers to leave. These documents do not grant any explicit right to the settlers to enter and remain in the al-Kurd property.

As the Israeli police escorted the intruders back to the house of the Palestinian Gawi family, occupied by the settlers since the forceful take-over in August, the heated exchange that ensued agitated Refka Kurd who then suffered a stroke confirmed by a CT scan.

The recent escalation of violent settler incursions has created an unbearable and dangerous situation for the Palestinian family and, as result, forced the al-Kurd children to sleep at their grandmother’s house, outside of Sheikh Jarrah.

Following the incursion, the settler who assaulted the two family members filed a complaint at a local police station, claiming that it was the al-Kurds, who attacked him. In contrast, Maysa and Munjad were not allowed to file a complaint concerning the violence inflicted upon them. “The settler filed a complaint claiming that I attacked him. I went to the police station to file a complaint, but was unable to, because they would not allow my lawyer to accompany me,” said Munjad.

The al-Kurds have become the fourth Sheikh Jarrah family whose house (or part of it) has been occupied by settlers in the last year. So far, 60 people have been left homeless. In total, 28 families living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes.

In a strategic plan, settlers have been utilizing discriminatory laws to expand their presence in Occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinians, who face difficulties in acquiring building permits from the municipality, are often left with no legal recourse for extending their homes to accompany their growing families. The Israeli authorities exercise their abilities to demolish and evict Palestinian residents, while ignoring building violations from the Israeli population in East Jerusalem.

http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/?p=1098