Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- > Vigilantes take up arms, vow to expel 'Muslim filth' > > By Jack Kelley > USA TODAY > > HEBRON, West Bank -- After a quick prayer, Avi Shapiro and > 12 other Jewish settlers put on their religious skullcaps, grabbed their > semiautomatic rifles and headed toward Highway 60. > > There, they pushed boulders, stretched barbed wire and set > tires afire to form a barricade that, they said, would stop even the biggest > of Palestinian taxis. Then they waited for a vehicle to arrive. > > As they crouched in a ditch beside the road, Shapiro, the > leader of the group, gave the settlers orders: Surround any taxi, ''open > fire'' and kill as many of the ''blood-sucking Arab'' passengers as > possible. > > ''We are doing what (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon > promised but has failed to do: drive these sons of Arab whores from the Land > of Israel,'' said Shapiro, 42, who moved here with his wife and four > children 3 years ago from Brooklyn. ''If he won't get rid of the Muslim > filth, then we will.'' > > Claiming they have been abandoned by Israel's government > and determined to rid the West Bank of Arabs, vigilante Jewish settlers are > shooting and beating Palestinians, stealing and destroying their property > and poisoning and diverting their water supplies, Israeli and Palestinian > officials say. > > Though Jewish extremists have lashed out before -- most > notoriously in 1994 when a U.S. settler, Baruch Goldstein, gunned down 29 > Arabs in a nearby mosque -- never before have they struck with such > frequency, Israeli officials say. And nowhere has the violence been as > intense as in this disputed city, believed to be the burial place of the > Biblical prophet Abraham. > > Nearly 450 right-wing Jews, all of whom are armed and claim > a Biblical right to the land, live here among 120,000 Palestinians. Many, > like Shapiro and his colleagues, are ready to strike at any time. > > Israeli and U.S. officials have warned Sharon that if the > violence against Palestinian civilians increases, it could enflame already > high emotions and lead the entire region into war. > > ''It only takes a spark to light a very big fire here,'' > says Yossi Sarid, a left-wing Israeli opposition leader. ''This is a city > that is cursed.'' > > 'A time bomb' > > Since the start of the latest surge of violence in Israel a > year ago this month, at least 119 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli > civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, according to B'Tselem, an Israeli human > rights group that has been critical of both sides. Hundreds have been > hospitalized, it says. > > During the same time, at least 30 settlers have been killed > by Palestinian gunmen. > > In July, Jewish vigilantes killed three Palestinians, > including a 3-month-old boy, in Nablus. The State Department condemned the > attack as a ''barbaric act'' of ''unconscionable vigilantism.'' No one has > been charged in the attack. > > ''These people are a time bomb,'' says Hanna Nasser, > Palestinian mayor of the West Bank city of Bethlehem. ''No one is safe.'' > > The almost daily attacks have been condemned by nearly all > Israelis, including most settlers. Politicians, who fear the extremists will > spoil Israel's attempt to portray itself as the victim rather than the > aggressor in this conflict, have been > the most vocal. > > ''These Jewish terrorists are criminals,'' Israeli Foreign > Minister Shimon Peres says. ''They've gone too far.'' > > Yet, the attacks are expected to increase, Israeli > officials say. A group of Jewish vigilantes who possess bomb-making > materials has formed in Hebron, the officials say. > > The group, which claimed responsibility for three recent > Palestinian deaths, has been distributing fliers in the West Bank that read: > ''Revenge is holy. It should be up to the government to do it, but > unfortunately, the government does not care about the murder of Jews. There > are people whose patience has run out.'' > > Security officials also say they fear that the extremists > are widening their targets to include Israeli police and soldiers sent to > protect the settlers, as well as Western diplomats and European peace > monitors. All have recently been attacked. The settlers accuse them of not > doing enough to protect them or of > favoring the Palestinians. > > On Aug. 21, 85 European Community monitors who had > patrolled Hebron since 1994 withdrew after complaining of weeks of verbal > and physical abuse by the settlers. ''Every day, we were kicked, dragged and > beaten by the settlers,'' says Karl-Henrik Sjursen of Norway, chief of the > observer mission. ''They made life impossible for us.'' > > Shots at a taxi > > On a recent Sunday, Shapiro and the 12 other extremists > spotted their first target: a white Palestinian taxi that had turned the > corner and begun to rumble toward them. From a hill 50 yards away, the > Jewish men could be seen removing the safety locks from the weapons. Their > wives were grabbing extra ammunition clips. Their children, all of them > younger than 12, were picking up rocks. > > But the Palestinian driver, upon seeing the settlers, > brought his Mercedes stretch taxi to a sudden stop 50 yards from the > checkpoint. He quickly turned the car around. Cursing aloud, Shapiro ordered > the men to open fire. The shooting lasted for 10 seconds. > > At least two bullets hit the car. One shattered its back > window. Several women wearing white Islamic headscarves could be heard > screaming and seen ducking. It wasn't known whether anyone was injured. > > ''We'll keep this up until we eliminate all the Muslim > filth,'' Shapiro said before the confrontation. ''We have to: It's our > Jewish duty.'' > > 'God's land given to us' > > Analysts such as Elisha Efrat of Tel Aviv University > estimate that 10% of the 177,000 settlers in the West Bank and Gaza are > extremists, people who are willing to die before giving up their land. > > Many of them live behind 25-foot tall stone fences and > bulletproof windows in Hebron. The 450 settlers here, and the 7,000 others > who live down the road in Israeli-controlled territory, see themselves as > the guardians of Hebron, which is considered Judaism's second holiest city > after Jerusalem. All are protected by several thousand Israeli soldiers and > police. > > ''This is God's land given to us, the Israeli people,'' > says settler Ariel Fischer, 38, citing Biblical passages that support > Israel's claim of the land. Like most of the extremists, he's Israeli-born. > ''If you don't wear a yarmulke (skullcap), > get out.'' > > Hebron is also home to 120,000 Palestinians, many of whom > live in the hilltop area of Abu Sneineh. > > For centuries, Arabs and Jews coexisted peacefully in > Hebron. Then a riot in 1929 resulted in the deaths of more than 60 Jews. The > British, who governed what was then Palestine, resettled the remaining Jews > elsewhere. > > In 1967, after Israel captured the West Bank of the Jordan > River, some Jews returned. But those who came were the most ideologically > extreme of Israelis. Backed by government policies that encouraged them to > move into the West Bank, the Israelis claimed a Biblical right to the city > and demanded that the Arabs leave. > > Then in 1997, the Israeli army, which had controlled Hebron > since the war 30 years ago, withdrew from 80% of the city and ceded control > to the Palestinian Authority. > > The remaining 20% was left for the settlers. > > That was a recipe for disaster, settlers say. Almost daily > since last September, there have been shots fired into their settlement by > Palestinian snipers. In response, Israel put 30,000 Palestinians, whose > homes surround the settlement, under a 24-hour curfew. It prohibits them > from leaving their homes, even to go to a doctor or attend school, and jails > them if they do. Twice a week, the curfew is lifted for a few hours to > allow the residents to > shop. The rest of the time, they are in their homes. > > Last week, hundreds of Israeli troops, backed by dozens of > tanks and bulldozers, swept into Hebron for several hours to destroy > buildings they say had been used by Palestinian snipers. Settlers want > Israel to reestablish control of the area by permanently reoccupying all of > Hebron. Until that happens, settlers say, they're forced to take > ''pre-emptive actions'' to stop the Palestinian gunfire. > > ''People here are extremely upset,'' says David Wilder, a > spokesman for Jewish settlers here. ''We're upset by the daily shooting, > killings and harassment by Palestinians. People feel abandoned (by Israel's > government) and so some people are going to take up guns.'' Says another > settler spokesman Noam Federman, ''If we don't take up guns, we'll be ducks > in a shooting range.'' > > But Israeli officials say the settlers often provoke the > violence. Unlike the Palestinians, the settlers are free to leave their > homes at will. They regularly attack Palestinian shops while the > Palestinians, who are forced to stay indoors because of the curfew, can only > watch, according to human rights groups. > > Ahmad Abu Neni, 55, is blind and a Palestinian. His small > kiosk of cleaning supplies has been ransacked three times since last > September by settlers, human rights officials say. He also has been beaten > in the back with a brick and punched repeatedly, they add. > > Neni says Israeli soldiers tried to break up one of the > attacks by firing a concussion grenade at the attackers, only to set his > clothes on fire. He suffered third-degree burns. His shop now closed, he > survives on handouts of food and money. ''If I had money and could see, I > would leave,'' Neni says. ''It's just a matter of time before they beat me > again.'' > > Nearby, Nafez Bani Jaber, 45, was burying all 123 of his > sheep. He says they were poisoned last week after 10 Jewish extremists > chased him off his fields. Israeli police say they have found needles dipped > in poison that they believe the settlers used on the sheep. Police say > poison also was dumped down a nearby well that Palestinians use. > > ''First they poisoned the sheep. Next will be the > children,'' Jaber says. ''These are war crimes.'' > > Often, the violence directed at the Palestinians is aimed > at their Muslim faith. Settlers have spray painted graffiti reading > ''Mohammed is a homosexual,'' referring to the Islamic prophet, and painted > Jewish Stars of David on the walls of the local Arab market. They also have > surrounded Muslim women and tried to rip off their Islamic headscarves and > body veils, human rights groups say. > > Samar Abdul-Shafti, 36, a Palestinian mother of two, was > photographed last month trying to escape several settlers who were beating > her as they tried to remove her headscarf. It has happened two other times > since then, she says, revealing bruises on her arms, legs and forehead. > > ''The Jews are trying to do to us what was done to them > during the Holocaust,'' Shafti says. ''They must not be allowed to drive us > from our homes. Someone must help.'' > > 'Ashamed to be a Jew' > > Palestinian police say they don't have the means to defend > the Arab residents. > > Israeli soldiers seem unwilling or unable to help. Noam > Tivon, Israeli Defense Forces brigade commander for Hebron, says his > soldiers are in Hebron to protect the settlers, not the Palestinians. Tivon > says his soldiers and police officers often are ambushed by settlers whom he > calls ''hooligans.'' > > The settlers accuse the police of failing to stop the Arab > violence. > > ''They throw rocks at us, curse at us and vandalize our > police cars,'' says Israeli policeman Shahar Mahsomi, 25. He suffered a > concussion in March after a settler struck him on the head with a rock. > Another settler tried to stab two police officers in the same scuttle. ''I > never thought I'd be fighting Jews,'' Mahsomi says. > > The situation is just as dangerous at the nearby > settlements of Kiryat Arba and Givat Harsina where nearly 7,000 settlers, > many of whom are hard-liners, regularly attack neighboring Palestinians. > > ''I can't believe we are risking our lives to defend these > fanatics,'' says Sgt. Avi Alamm, 28, as he watches a settler boy, dressed as > the late Goldstein, walked by with an Israeli flag. Goldstein, who gunned > down the 29 Muslims, is revered among some settlers as a prophet. They > encourage their children to dress like him on occasion. ''The people make me > ashamed to be a Jew,'' Alamm says. > > Now, many Israelis are calling on the government to > dismantle extremist settlements such as the one here. > > ''The Jewish settlement in Hebron is a major nuisance, and > the lawless behavior by Jews there in recent days leads to one conclusion,'' > the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz recently editorialized. ''Hebron must be > evacuated.'' > ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
