The House in Duma

Several Hebrew-language articles (here by Sarah Beck and now here by Ayelet Kahane) and English ones (here and here)  have addressed the common assumption of the police, the IDF and, most importantly, the media, that the torching of a house in Duma in which resulted in the deaths of two people, an infant and the father, was the work of Jews, most probably "hilltop youth" who were engaged in a "price tag" action.  In the Los Angeles Times, all of Israel was blamed.

Sandy Tolan, associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC, whose book has been sharply criticized and who accuses Israel of apartheid wrote

The fire in Duma cannot be seen as a random event. Rather, it is the outcome of decades of Israel's expansionist policies in the West Bank. 

Kahane's column

includes a photo of the location of the house which is deep in the village:

The question raised is why would Jewish youth infiltrate a house not on the edge of the village but prefer to walk several hundred meters, past many houses with dogs and residents, to commit their heinous crime?

So, far, four fires have occurred at Duma all involving the Darawshe Dawabsheh family which raises a curious problem: who, or what, is responsible for all these flames?

P.S.   And read this.

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Rav Chaim Druckman on Hilltop Youth

As reported in Matzav HaRuach, October 11, 2013, #253, p. 14:-

(Relating that he had overhead a telephone conversation between a high school pupil in his presence with his mother wherein he protested that Arab s should not be allowed to harvest their olives)

We must educate you youth the be sensitive human beings.  Of course, the Land of Israel is all ours but this has no connection with the relationship towards the Arab as a person.  Terrorists, such as the one at Psagot, should be targeted as if the were animals after their prey.  But what has this to do with the relationship to the every and any Arab?  We must know how to deal with these things.  For sure, it may be difficult but we must know how to contend.

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Exactly Who Is Extreme?

Today, the NYTimes allowed this piece (fuller version here)  to be published at its site:

Stopping Extremist Settlers

Daniel Byman and Natan Sachs are the authors.  Heavyweights, a bit.  Byman is professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and director of research at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. Sachs is a fellow at the Saban Center.  He even has a video summary of the article.

To be truthful, much of the analysis could have be said by me, although with different emphases and, of course, with a bit more nuanced language.

But it's a statement like this:

Late this past June, a group of Israeli settlers in the West Bank defaced and burned a mosque in the small West Bank village of Jabaa....The torching of the mosque was part of a wider trend of routine violence committed by radical settlers against innocent Palestinians, Israeli security personnel, and even mainstream settler leaders — all aimed at intimidating perceived enemies of the settlement project. 

that bothers me.

There have been no arrests, no charge sheets, no trials, not judgment, no sentencing.

Sure, I can guess and suppose just like them but at least write "suspected"? 

Or expressing this sort of logic:-

Whenever extremist settlers destroy Palestinian property or deface a mosque, they strengthen Palestinian radicals at the expense of moderates, undermining support for an agreement and delaying a possible accord. 

is also problematic.  After all, there was radical or even extremist or terrorist "Palestinians" active way before the "hilltop youth" phenomenon or the "price tag" policy.  I am not, to be clear, lending any support in any way to the Jewish violence that there is and have condemned it.  As have all Yesha Council leaders.

So how is this true?

Meanwhile, each time the Israeli leadership caves in to the demands of radical settlers it vindicates their tactics and encourages ever more brazen behavior, deepening the government’s paralysis.

The police may be incompetent, perhaps, but their claim is simply not true.  "Caving in"?  Oh, puhleese.

And as if this hasn't or isn't happening:-

Israeli leaders must denounce extremists and shun their representatives, placing particular pressure on religious leaders who incite violent extremism. 

As for this ending:-

Extremist violence tarnishes Israel’s name and imperils its future. Friends of Israel, the Israeli government, and even those who support the settlements in the West Bank should fight back against this dangerous phenomenon.

I agree.  And we are.  But article such as these, which fudge truth and tarnish, are of no help but rather are expressions of ideological opposition and not honest concerned involvement.

________________

UPDATE

PM Netanyahu Condemns the Throwing of a Molotov Cocktail Near Bat Ayin
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening (Thursday, 16 August 2012), sharply condemns the throwing of a Molotov cocktail near Bat Ayin. He has instructed the ISA to act determinedly to apprehend those who perpetrated the attack.  "This is a very serious incident. We will do everything to catch those responsible and bring them to justice," the Prime Minister said.


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So That's What a Sica Looks Like

See that short sword in her left hand, held high?

That's a sica, the weapon-of-choice of the sicarri.  You know, those "Jewish terrorists".

About her?

Oh, here:-

A small bronze statue dating back nearly 2,000 years may be that of a female gladiator, a victorious one at that, suggests a new study...It’s not known where the statue was originally found, though it is currently in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbein Hamburg, Germany...in the air she raises what the researcher, Alfonso Manas of the University of Granada, believes is a sica, a short curved sword used by gladiators. The gesture she gives is a "salute to the people, to the crowd,"

Recently, in Sh'ma, David Makovsky used the metaphor and added:

In the years leading up to the destruction of the Second Temple, no one stood up to the Sicarii. As the rabbis say, sinat chinam, senseless hatred, destroyed the Second Jewish Commonwealth. If the Third Jewish Commonwealth is to endure, the people and their institutions must stand up against the new, violent hatred of “Price Tag” and other modern “Sicarii” groups, just as they do to Palestinian terrorism.

I sent in a response (that hasn't - yet? - appeared):-

David Makovsky suggests ("A History of Hatred", Sh'ma 42/689, April 2012) that the small group of "Price Tag" hooligans are "the closest inheritor of the Sicarii mantle", that "it is possible they are enjoying the tacit support of a wider group" ajnd they must be stood up to "just as [is done] with Palestinian terrorism".  Makovsky is not only misleading his readers but is engaging in the very sinat chinim he rails against.  For example, no one has been found guilty or even charged with the crime of mosque-torching.

All the representative bodies of the Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) have consistently condemned the reckless, irresponsible criminal actions that were carried out under the "Price Tag" label.  Dany Dayan, Naftali Bennet, Elyakim HaEtzni, Pinchas Wallerstein and others are on record, in media interviews and op-ed articles.  Moreover, after the last outburst, "Price Tag" activity has disappeared.  Do Rabbis, educators and public figures need do more?  Yes.  Surely so.  But Makovsky's intimation, which would permit the entire camp of Jews living in Yesha to be stained and besmirched, is itself a bit of internecine warfare, semantic, true, but nevertheless is intended to support an attack on a "wider group" that certainly is not involved and has worked against the phenomenon.

A second disturbing frame of argument employed by Makovsky is comparing Arab terror activity with  "Price Tag" operations.  That is wrong.  David wears a kippa and he knows that Jewish law can turn on the size of an olive.  These kids are not modern-day sicarii.  In fact, I would suggest that the amount of soccer stadium ruffians are many more in absolute numbers here in Israel and have caused damage to life, limb and property which might even equal that of the "Price Tag" teenagers. I am not relieving anyone of responsibility but simple providing some perspective which was lacking in Makovsky's piece which could justify a claim of "we Jews have the Price Taggers and the Arabs have Hamas/Fatah/Islamic Jihad".  That would be immoral because it would, and it could, allow anti-Zionists and others to point a finger of blame which should not be done.

The over 350,000 Jews resident in Judea and Samaria have established institutions of society, social welfare, education, culture, health, immigrant absorption, science, security and politics.  We include voters from Meretz to Shas.  We have a problem and it is being dealt with and hopefully, if not under control, is being treated the best we can, also on the background of the sometimes irrational actions of the Military Government here as well as the absurdities emanating from the Defense Ministry (among other things, I am referring to the latest house purchase in Hebron).

And there is a new book out, The Sicarri in Josephus' Judean War.

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For the Record: The Hilltop Elder

From a Press briefing by Foreign Minister Sharon at the National Press Club, Washington, 7 December 1998.

Foreign Minister Sharon was queried about a statement he made on 15 November in which he urged Jewish settlers in the West Bank to expand settlements. He replied that Israel was not creating new settlements, but expanding existing ones, which was permissible under the Oslo agreements...Text:

...Question: The Wye agreement in Article 5, bans unilateral actions by either side, pending a final-status agreement. How do you define "expansion of settlements" as being "not unilateral"?


Foreign Minister Sharon: The Israeli government made it very, very clear that as long as we have not reached a permanent agreement, Israel will not build new settlements or communities in Samaria and Judea. We made this very clear. And that is what we are doing. We are not establishing any new settlements. At the same time, there was a very clear government resolution demanding the strengthening, building, developing of existing settlements - that is the line of the government, and that is exactly what we are doing. It was a very clear Cabinet decision. That's what we have done, and that's what we are doing.

As a matter of fact, not in the Oslo agreement and not in Wye agreement was even one word written about adding population to existing settlements. At the same time, because you ask what I will regard to be unilateral, I would say declaration of a Palestinian state - that is something which is all-out against the agreement. Therefore, we of course advise and recommend the Palestinians all the time not to take any unilateral steps.


Question: Could I just follow it up? Your recent statement about urging the settlers to take advantage of time to build and expand on the hilltops - does that still represent the Israeli government policies?

Foreign Minister Sharon: Look, I admit that maybe it's not exactly a diplomatic expression of a Minister of Foreign Affairs. But I want to give you an answer. I said that once I heard the Palestinian Authority Chairman calling to use guns, and I saw that in order to avoid the danger of using guns, the best thing might be just to hold in our hands those hills that control those Jewish communities. All that - and that has been said very clearly - is within the master plan of those towns and settlements; not beyond that, and without any expropriation of private land to state-owned land, and that is exactly what has been done.

^

Hilltop Youth Worse Than 'Militants' (aka Terrorists)?

Edmund Sanders reporting from Givat Assaf outpost for the LATimes: Settlement outposts at root of Jewish violence in West Bank thinks that this is a neutral statement of observation from "Israeli pundits":

"hilltop youths...are a bigger security threat in the West Bank than Palestinian militants."

He explains:

...After years of legal wrangling, Givat Assaf, a collection of trailers and sheds that house 25 Jewish families, was slated for demolition this month...a fringe group of young extremists, fueled by the ideological belief that the entire Holy Land belongs to the Jewish people, have embarked on a campaign of incitement, destruction and intimidation in a last-ditch effort to save their communities...The recent militant attacks appear aimed at making the prospect of dismantling even one outpost so unappealing and politically costly that the Netanyahu government will search for a way to back off...The militants think "the only way to prevent it from becoming a slippery slope toward wholesale evacuation is to put up a fight for every house or even a chicken coop,"...

...Some Israeli pundits now say the gangs, also known as hilltop youths after the sites commonly chosen for outposts, are a bigger security threat in the West Bank than Palestinian militants...

...the recent flare-up has thrust outposts to the forefront of the Mideast conflict...some lawmakers are now searching for ways to retroactively legalize the outposts. "They're trying to pressure the government and it's working," said Hagit Ofran, a spokeswoman for Peace Now, an Israeli group that opposes settlements. "The government is afraid."...

And news assistant Batsheva Sobelman in The Times' Jerusalem bureau contributed to this report.

A 'militant', Mr. Sanders, is a terrorist.

A terrorist indiscriminately and actually preferrably targets citizens in order to kill or maim them. They seek to destroy. And so far, the hilltop youth have acted no worse than the demonstrators for peace at the Bil'in Fence location vis a vis the IDF, and that in no way excuses or forgives their activities which are wrong, especially as regards their 'price tag' operations.

Next time, identify your pundit so we all know who is this stupid and spiteful person.

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Hilltop Youth Criticism

Yehuda Etzion on the "hilltop youth":-

Two weeks ago Etzion was driving near Migron. Hilltop youth from the outpost, who were angry that buildings had been demolished there, had placed large stones on the road. Etzion hit one and damaged his car. "I believe they did it so that someone would hit the stones and call the army, and then they would throw stones at the soldiers. And in fact, when the army arrived, they started throwing stones," he said.

Etzion has harsh criticism for the hilltop youth. "Even if the government here is foreign, it's our foreign government. Israeli soldiers, who carry out Israeli state policy, must not be harmed, even if I consider it a policy of betrayal.

"During the days of the pre-state underground, it was a mitzvah to kill a British soldier. The comparison hilltop youths make between themselves and the underground is a farce. I myself say that the Israel Defense Forces has donned the suit of the British Mandate and there's a White Paper, but it's impossible to copy the methods of fighting used against the British. Instead of fighting the soldiers, we have to construct an alternative. Throwing stones at an Arab taxi, and certainly at an IDF jeep, is a ridiculous, foolish, worthless and pointless act."

Some of the hilltop youth call the Jewish underground their model. Etzion says he regrets his role in the underground. "It was an immature and childish act. At the time I thought that the actions of a small group could tip the balance. Now I believe there are no shortcuts through violence, because the road is long. There's no choice, we have to strengthen ourselves."

He supports fighting against evacuating outposts. During the evacuation of Amona, in 2006, Etzion was trampled by a mounted policeman and badly hurt. The policeman was brought to trial; Etzion sued the government and received NIS 23,000 in compensation. During the next evacuation he proposes "fighting in every passive way possible."

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Yedioth Ahronot Goes Terrorist, In Its Language

In a "SUMMARY OF OP-EDS FROM THE HEBREW PRESS" issued by an official Israel government agency, I found this editorial translation:

Yediot Ahronot asserts that, "Those who glory in 'price-tag' threats know in advance, and from experience, that they will not pay any price for their actions," and contends that the Government's reluctance to deal with the so-called "hilltop youth", "is turning them into a time bomb." The author believes that, 'These birds will not be deterred by a scarecrow in uniform. Jewish lawbreakers in the territories must be defined as what they are – security threats of the highest order – and dealt with by means that fit the definition."

I fully agree that "hilltop youth", as imprecise a term as it is, and the "price tag" policy are all wrong, negative and unhelpful.

However, the term "security threat" used by leftwinger Gevirtz is very precisie in that it is used to define them as basically terrorists for that is the Hebrtew-language connotation today.

^

That cannot be tolerated.

Looking At Us Throught the Lens of the NYTimes

A second installment of "Unsettled" -

West Bank Settlers Dig In, but Resolve May Have a Limit

Armed, ideological settlers are unlikely to engage in organized armed conflict with the Israeli military, as some fear, because their beliefs make them hesitant to turn against their own.

(See the video: "Keeping the Faith in Homesh")


Extract:

But scores of interviews over several months, including with settler firebrands, produced a different conclusion. Divided, leaderless and increasingly mystical, such settlers will certainly resist evacuation but are unlikely to engage in organized armed conflict with the Israeli military. Their belief that history can be best understood as a series of confrontations between the Jews and those who seek their destruction, and their faith in their ultimate triumph, make them hesitant to turn against their own, even in dire circumstances.

“We are idealists, but we are not crazy,” said Ayelet Sandak, who was removed from her Gaza settlement home and is helping to build an unauthorized outpost, Maoz Esther, with the goal of both expanding the Jewish presence and diverting the military. “By building outposts we are keeping the army away from the main settlements. We are sure that if we are strong, we will not be forced to move.”

As part of its commitment to a two-state solution, Israel has promised to dismantle two dozen outposts like this one in the coming months. The Obama administration’s Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, is back in the region trying to set up a summit meeting for new peace talks. Yet officials have been slow to act on these outposts, worried that the move could break this society in two.

Certainly, some settler leaders speak in ominous tones. “They’ll have to kill us to get us out of here,” said Itay Zar, founder of Havat Gilad, sitting in the outpost’s unpaved central square, a pink sun setting over the majestic Samarian hills before dropping into the Mediterranean.

and

...interviews with settlers suggest that the threat of violence is largely a political strategy. The great majority say they realize that if the bulldozers arrive, their fight is over.

“We cannot allow ourselves to wait until the soldiers are at our doors,” noted David Ha’ivri, a spokesman for the northern West Bank settlers. “We must prepare strategic maneuvers in advance.”

By that, he mostly means politics. If the soldiers do come, the settlers are unlikely to fight. “People won’t leave their homes peacefully but they will not shoot soldiers,” predicted Shaul Goldstein, who is the leader of the regional council of the Gush Etzion settler bloc and is considered a moderate.

A senior Israeli general in the West Bank agreed. He said the army was awaiting orders to evacuate the two dozen outposts and was preparing for everything, including soldier refusal and settler bloodshed directed both at Palestinians and at security forces. But, he added, speaking under army rules of anonymity: “I don’t think there will be a lot of resistance. Deep inside, most settlers love Israel and love the Israeli Army.”

...there are several reasons to take it seriously.

First, the Gaza operation splintered the settlers, discrediting the traditional leaders in the eyes of the new generation.

Second, many settlers believe that they and their supporters are inheriting the mantle of Zionism, so promoting an internal war would be counterproductive.

Finally, the direction that many of the most radical settlers have taken has been toward the esoteric, not combat.

and

“We can talk as aggressively as we like on the right,” said Anita Toker, a spokeswoman for the Gaza evacuees, “but how many people are we?”

Ms. Toker, a founder of the first civilian settlement in Gush Katif, believes that only the mobilization of the Israeli masses can prevent a further withdrawal. But she is not optimistic. “So far everything is polarized,” she said.

Other settlers are banking on a refusal by Israeli soldiers to obey orders. But in a sign of the divisions racking the settler movement and given the grave external threats to the country, many reject that approach.

“Above all we are dealing with the existence of Israel,” said Israel Harel, a leading intellectual of the settlement enterprise, who established the settlers’ council in the 1970s and whose son, Itai, helped found a nearby outpost.

“Once soldiers do not obey orders,” Mr. Harel said, “it is the beginning of the end of the Jewish state.”

Use Your "Tops", Hilltop Youth

Reported:

Dozens of youths subsequently came to the scene, and prevented the security forces from moving the truck. During an ensuing scuffle, which Israel Radio reported included shoving and cursing, four settler youths were arrested and one was wounded.

Settlers later set a nearby Palestinian olive grove ablaze to protest the incident.

What has an Arab olive field have to do with anything?

Why involve someone who has, at the moment of the protest, nothing to do with your problem with the IDF and a truck?

Why, for free, give a gift of bad publicity to our opponents?

Can anyone out there explain it to them?

Chanukah Event on the Hill Ridges

The "Loyalists of the Land of Israel" and the "Youth for Erezt-Yisrael" are planning an event for Chanukah under the slogan "Strengthening the Light of Settlement":

Trees to be planted, structures to be reinforced all along the hill ridges of Migron, Shvut Ami, Ma'alot Halhoul, Netzer, Maoz Esther, Yad Yair, Sela and Hebron's Peave House.


And here is another news update on activist events and happening , issue #5 of La'Ma'as

They're "Criminal", Stains Haaretz

Haaretz reports, using its own language choice:-

The Social Affairs Ministry will soon begin an experimental program for dealing with youth and adolescents alienated from national-religious mainstream society, in an effort to address the phenomenon of "hilltop youth." A tender is about to be released to choose the operators of the program, slated to be released next month.

...The term hilltop youth is used to describe members of West Bank settlements, who commit acts of violence or vandalism against Palestinians or their property, or engage in other criminal activity.

...The tender identifies the program's target audience as youths from the national-religious community involved in dangerous activities such as loitering, crime, withdrawing from their families or religious communities, problems dealing with authority, emotional difficulties and more.

In Hebrew, there's a sayinbg, "life and death are in the hands of one's tongue".

Language can be dangerous and criminal itself.

Isabel Kershner Takes On Israel's Radical Right

The New York Times' Isabel Kershner takes on the Yesha scene in an article today entitled, "The Radical Right Takes On Israel".

Takes on all of Israel?

Really?



It is, surely, the "radical right" that she describes, as well as using these terms such as: "elements of Israel’s settler movement", "Hard-core right-wing settlers", "extremist bastion", "the religious, ideological wing of the settlement movement", "so-called hilltop youth" and "the more militant activist part".

Nevertheless, she does not provide any standard of judgment for the uninitiated reader. Is she talking about 10,000 persons, 1 million or 250 teenagers? Of course, one terrorist or fanatic is more than enough, as Yigal Amir proved. Still, my point is that she was not describing a known quality but was drawing a general picture, providing background. And while using terminology that shielded her from being accused of making sweeping generalizations, I think that in not informing the reader as to what is the true picture, she was transferring impressions and not facts. In other words, her reporting was a bit biased.

For example, in writing that there have

been bouts of settler violence for years, notably during the transfer of Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005

she is misleading because both in absolute numbers of incidents and in relative to the monstrosity of the acts done to the Gush Katif and Northern Samaria revenants, what actually happened was minor, although regrettable, and cannot be compared in violence to any similar event on that scale in other countries.

She also failed to let her readers know that the person responsible for the terror attack at Yitzhar, which she describes fairly, was the same person the army killed a week or so later as he tried to throw a molotov cocktail at soldiers. In other words, the residents of Yitzhar were facing a quite determined killer.

In another instance, she writes,

In Samaria, the biblical name for the northern West Bank, and in Binyamin, the central district around the Palestinian city of Ramallah, settlers recently ousted their more mainstream representatives in local council elections, voting in what they called “activist” mayors instead. These new mayors, like the Samaria council’s Gershon Mesika, reject what they see as the more compromising policies of the Yesha council...

First, Samaria was not only the Biblical name but it is the geographical name used until today. Secondly, the mayor, or head of the Binyamin Reginla Council, Avi Roeh, is not more activist than the former head, Pinchas Wallerstein, for sure. Thirdly, as for Gershon's activism, well, have you heard a Jew say 'eh'? And fourthly, as she does mention the friction with the Yesha Council, she couldn't speak with Dani Dayan, the Council's Chairman? Note: I called her up, spoke with her and made that very suggestion.


And one more example of troublesome writing. She relates to Rechalim

Rahelim, a Samarian community of 45 families founded in 1991, has been labeled an illegal outpost

but could have added "...founded in November 1991 in protest following an Arab terror attack on civilian buses which killed a mother of 7 children and the bus driver, a father of two".

I guess not all the facts fit.