Friday, June 13, 2008

Settlers, with the help of the Police, Stop “Breaking the Silence” Tour Again

Once again, the Hebron settlers proved that, in the Wild West Bank, they are the bosses. After the High Court of Justice ruled that Breaking the Silence can conduct their tours, provided that they are coordinated with the police, the settlers said, "Ain't no way they are coming in here" and blocked the bus for two hours. The police arrived and did not interfere, except to shorten the route of the tour to 500 meters. The BTS guys said, "Forget it," and they turned around and went home.

The settlers, for their part, have appealed to the High Court of Justice to disallow the tours. I should point out that the tours do not go on the settlers' property, nor do they involve, generally, more than small groups (There was one exception to that.) As a matter of fact, the tours have been conducted for several years, without incident. The trouble started after the settlers attacked a group of visiting German parliamentarians last spring, calling them Nazis, which prompted a diplomatic incident and an Israeli government apology.

Of course, if the rule of law prevailed in Hebron, the police would remove the settlers who are protesting, arrest them (or at least warn them), and allow the tour to go on. But let's face it – at the end of the day, the settlers are the law, and the police their lackeys. You can read about it here in Hebrew.

By the way, all of this plays into the hands of "Breaking the Silence." I have been on one of those tours. Basically, they take you to empty Palestinian streets which have been closed because of the settlers. With all due respect, it is not the most exciting thing in the world. Sometimes I think that Barukh Marzel, Itamar Ben Gvir, and Noam Federman are being paid by "Breaking the Silence" , in addition to their regular jobs as Shin Bet informants. After all, what better "action" can you have for foreign journalists, human rights activists, American Jews, and the other people who go on the tours, than having a lot of crazy settlers verbally abusing the "Breaking the Silence" folks, preventing their tours, while the police and army stand idly by, in violation of the High Court of Justice's ruling?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ten portions of wisdom, ten portions of the law, and ten portions of hypocrisy are in the world; nine portions of each are in the land of Israel and one outside of it.

Midrash Rabbah Esther.

-and the last destroys those before it and the others can destroy the last. Israel must choose. Perhaps Jewish history will not endlessly, chad gadyah, repeat itself this time.

-Ploni

Anonymous said...

There is more - the police commander of Hebron said that "the left organizations in Hebron are more dangerous than the right-wing extremists".
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3556032,00.html
(Hebrew)

Anonymous said...

The police commander of Hebron is correct if he meant danger to himself. . The left wing will call him to account-- the right wing will bury his nudge, nudge, wink, wink corruption.
Ploni