Two Versions - Which Do You Choose To Believe

Do you believe this Reuters version of an event by Haitham Tamimi:

Jewish settlers rampage through West Bank village

SAFA, West Bank (Reuters) – Dozens of Israelis from a Jewish settlement where a Palestinian killed a youth last week rampaged on Wednesday through a West Bank Arab village, smashing car windows and damaging homes, residents and medics said.

At least five Palestinians were injured in violence that included confrontations between stone-throwing villagers and Israeli soldiers who arrived at the scene after the settlers, from Bat Ayin, entered neighboring Safa.

"A large number of settlers came at 7:30 in the morning and started to smash car windows and throw rocks at houses," said Abu al-Abed, a resident of Safa, where 300 Palestinians live.

An Israeli military source said the violence started when Palestinians threw stones at Bat Ayin settlers praying on a nearby hill before the Jewish Passover holiday.

Safa residents said about 200 settlers, some of them carrying weapons, entered the village.

Soldiers fired rubber-coated metal bullets and also used tear gas during the clashes with Palestinian stone-throwers, villagers said. There were no reports of any injuries or arrests among the settlers.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Joseph Nasr, Editing by Katie Nguyen)

Or this version of events:


Arabs Attack Bat Ayin Jews Who Recited Blessing of the Sun

(IsraelNN.com) Dozens of stone-throwing Arabs attacked Jews of the Bat Ayin community, south of Jerusalem, on Wednesday morning. The Jews had gathered on a hill known as Mukhtar Mound, adjacent to Bat Ayin to recite the Blessing of the Sun and to place a cornerstone for the synagogue of a new community on the Jewish-owned land.

The prayers and ceremonies were coordinated with the local regional council and army, which escorted the Bat Ayin residents, Bat Ayin Yeshiva Dean Rabbi Natan Greenberg told Israel National News.

Trouble started after the Jews concluded the Blessing of the Sun at the site, now called Arzei Shlomo (Cedars of Solomon), in memory of 13-year-old Shlomo Nativ, who was murdered in an Arab axe attack last week, and Erez Levanon who was killed by Arab terrorists two years ago. The site was purchased by Jews in the 1930's.

More than 200 Bat Ayin residents walked away from the ceremony and to the site of the planned synagogue, where Chaim Nativ, father of the young terror victim, drove cornerstones into the ground with an axe, the same tool used to murder his child a week earlier. Daniel Winston, said his son, who was a classmate of Shlomo, made the axe handle out of a fig tree.

The participants in the ceremony built three walls, approximately three feet high and three feet wide, out of stones they gathered at the scene until Arabs began to attack them with rocks. The soldiers refrained from escalating the confrontation and held fire until the Arabs called for reinforcements over a loudspeaker system and began shouting in Arabic "Death to Jews" while the Jews retaliated with rock throwing.

As the Arab crowd approached the Jews, the soldiers shot and wounded at least one person critically. Arab sources reported that more than a dozen others suffered lesser wounds, mostly from tear gas. Rabbi Greenberg said that Arab claims that the Jewish residents shot and caused property damage at a nearby village were "total lies."

Reuters told its readers around the world that that "dozens of Israelis...rampaged..., smashing car windows and damaging homes." It quoted Arabs that the Jews smashed car windows but did not offer any evidence and did not quote Jewish denials.

Winston [I know him, son of my good friends Gail and Manny] said that the community plans to return to the site for afternoon prayers at 1:30 (6:30 a.m. EDT) on Wednesday.

And AP.

BBC

UPDATE

JPost - the Arabs started