Leftists filmed torching Gush Etzion land

[shira]

VIDEO - Six foreign nationals and Palestinians set fires alight near the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin in the Gush Etzion bloc. Police said the suspects were taken in for questioning on suspicion of arson and illegal congregation. Settlers said that at about 11 am they saw fires on lands they said belonged to Bat Ayin. Security sources said it was apparently land whose ownership is not regulated.

Dov Mark, land supervisor for the Gush Etzion Council, said such acts have taken place a number of times. "This is a known Palestinian method to take over state land," he said. "With the support of anarchists, who usually come from abroad, they come to an area of natural woodland which has never been cultivated, burn it on purpose and at the same time plant trees. It's all supposed to alter the reality on the ground."

Mark warned that "in this way, it's hard for the Israel Land Administration to work from the moment they plant trees on the land or cultivate it for agricultural crops. In today's case, some 80 dunams (20 acres) of natural woodland were burned by a group of 25 Palestinians and anarchists."

Shaul Goldstein, head of the Gush Etzion Council, said the involvement of foreign left-wing activists in inflaming animosity between Palestinians and settlers had increased in recent years. "They come to provoke," he said. "The State and police do nothing, especially against those anarchists who this time were foreign nationals. Whoever is arrested is released shortly afterwards and goes back to his old habits. About Israeli anarchists, the only thing I can say is, whoever loves this country doesn't burn it."

more...
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3981116,00.html

[shaayecanaan]

1. I think I know the way that this is supposed to go...

someone will ask the obvious question \"what business is it of the Israelis if the Palestinians are burning West Bank land?\". And then you will spring your cunning trap: \"Aha! But you are progressive and you are supposed to care about trees!\". Thus showing us up for the hypocrites we are. Supposedly.

Quite pathetic that this is what passes for an Israeli grievance these days. But I suppose given that the PA has arrested almost every single person on Israeli wanted lists (see below) I guess they have to grasp at some straw to justify the occupation.

Remember the days when Israel kept saying it would withdraw from the West Bank the minute it had a peace partner that could keep security in the West Bank? I do.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/west-bank-most-wanted-terrorist-list-has-dwindled-to-almost-nil-1.323465

[bemildred]

2. What about those foreign anarchists stirring up trouble

between the peace-loving settlers and the otherwise contented Palestinians?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

3. Well, it's a step in the right direction.

The only way to interest Israel in peace is to make the status quo less comfortable for it.

That does not justify violence against civilians, but it emphatically does justify the destruction of the property of settlers.

[whosinpower]

4. I disagree

For the simple reason that it is a very slippery slope to try to stand on that states it is legitimate to destroy property - but without violence......

I do not see this ever leading to the illusive peace payoff.

I think the two parties need to realize and recognise a simple truth - neither are leaving. The jewish Israeli's are not leaving. The Arab palistinians are not leaving. It would be far better for both if they came at the problem from that position. The palistinians have a right to their state - as do the Israeli's. It is not at all helpful, in the interest of having to live together, that Abbas states there can be no Israeli on palistinian land. It is just as harmful that Lieberman tries to gerryrig a scheme that would move the borders to exclude Arab neighborhoods from Israel.

The jewish settlements within the West Bank are an opportunity for the PA to maintain a revenue stream - and they are foolish to not recognize it. The land can belong to the PA - and the settlers can stay - provided they pay for it in a lease type agreement. The IDF will no longer provide security to the settlers and if they choose to go back to Israel proper - they should be allowed to do so. They should also be allowed to sell their properties/buildings - but not the land that it sits on. Perhaps a third party, nato type of security force could be put in place to protect the interests of all the citizens.

If a person were to see it in this manner - then settlement building is not a deterrent to the peace talks - it does not matter. And, if no one is forced to vacate their homes with a change in policy, or in the event of a successful negotiation, this takes allot of the angst out of the process. BUT - the leadership within both parties needs to set aside their biases, both parties needs to set aside the pain, hardship, discrimination, anti-semitism, racism of the past - and look to the future.

[shaayecanaan]

5. "Slippery slope" arguments tend to be rubbish, in my view...

For example, the argument that abortion will lead us on a slippery slope towards killing children, and that legalising same sex relationships will lead to pederasty.

In any event, there is a clear double standard in your argument. If Canadians crossed the border and started building outposts in Seattle without obtaining permission from the US I doubt that you would oppose the right of the US to destroy those constructions.

[oberliner]

10. Would who Jordan and Syria be in your US/Canada analogy?

The analogy is completely non-instructive due to the complete lack of any similarity between the two situations.

The 1967 War for one - and the numerous players involved - Jordan, Syria, Egypt, etc.

[shaayecanaan]

13. Why should it make any difference?

The territory in question is acknowledged as belonging to the Palestinians.

If it is your suggestion that the ownership of the land by Palestinians should be regarded as being more tenuous due to it having been annexed by Jordan in recent history, then obviously I regard that suggestion as tasteless. The territory within Israel proper has also been in the possession of several countries in very recent history, and therefore by that same logic would be equally tenuous.

Obviously, you realise that your suggestion is offensive, as you have refrained from articulating it clearly.

[oberliner]

16. Because the analogy is nonsensical

The status of the territory in question is actually acknowledged to be a component of the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Numerous proposals by members of the international community as well as Israeli and Palestinian leaders involve some of that territory being ceded to Israel as part of a permanent peace agreement. This is not the case between the United States and Canada - who are not negotiating a peace agreement and are not discussing any potential territorial swaps as part of such agreement.

[shaayecanaan]

17. The territory belongs to the Palestinians...

and accordingly what is nonsensical is that Palestinians are being condemned for clearing their own land.

\"Numerous proposals by members of the international community as well as Israeli and Palestinian leaders involve some of that territory being ceded to Israel as part of a permanent peace agreement.\"

Actually, those \"numerous proposals\" also involve Israeli territory (of a roughly equal amount) being ceded to the Palestinians. Again, if that makes tenuous Palestinian claims to territory then equally Israel\'s claim to its territory is similarly tenuous.

If you prefer, then, the situation is analogous to Palestinians objecting to the clearance of land within Israel proper. To wit, it is none of their business. If Israelis in the settlements object to Palestinians making use of their land, the appropriate recourse would be for them to return to Israel.

[oberliner]

18. And it is currently being occupied by Israel...

And again - this points to the ridiculousness of your US/Canada analogy.

There is, at this point, no Palestinian state.

[bemildred]

11. Well yeah, one cannot just assume a causal relationship based on surface similarities.

That would be very irrational and unscientific.

[whosinpower]

12. A better analogy would be

In Canada, if indiginous natives received backing, both militarily and financially from China to unilaterally declared soverignty/self determination over Canadian land....which lead to the inevitable war which the natives won.....and continued to encroach/take over properties that the crown sold to immigrants....would I oppose the destruction of those outposts?

As a great grandchild of an immigrant in Canada, I used this analogy to a friend who expressed support to Israel in Operation Cast Lead. I suggested to him, that if it was his home that he was evicted from, and his children that died - he would find himself wanting to fight just as hard as the Gazans did, and the palistinians do.

But, I abhore violence - so do not see any positive outcome from destruction of buildings, or outcasting peoples from land they live on. I, personally would try to find a way that both parties could learn to live together, and benefit from each other.

[shaayecanaan]

14. As I see it, there was no destruction of buildings...

instead the Palestinians were clearing regrown areas and replanting them with olive trees, essentially as a "facts on the ground" initiative.

I suppose by your analogy this would be comparable to native Canadians cultivating their land so as to prevent white settlers from alleging that they are not using it and therefore seizing it for themselves. Frankly, I don't see how anyone could reasonably object to this.

[arcticken]

6. As you can see from the replies thus far

if it don't demonize Israel, don't waste their time.

[azurnoir]

7. How brave of ynet not even JPost has as of yet printed this

but at least one other online news site has shown even greater courage

In response to the video showing Arabs and anarchists committing willful arson in wooded areas and olive groves near the community, where a young child was murdered by an Arab infiltrator last year, MK Yaakov Katz, ("Ketsale"), head of the National Union party, accused the police and ISA (Shabak) of unjustified blackening the name of Judea and Samaria's Jewish residents on this and other issues.
The MK claimed that law enforcement agencies have known for two years that those who really uprooted trees, burned mosques, wrote grafitti and burned volumes of the Koran were not Jews, but rather anarchists, radical leftists and Arabs who succeeded in their plan to have the blame fall on Israel's most idealistic citizens, those Jews who live in its Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria. They enjoyed full cooperation of Israel's law enforcement agencies who did not look for the real perpetrators, having decided without question that Jews had done the deeds.

MK Katz demanded that the Prime Minister form an investigative committee that will show the truth and make the police and other law enforcement agencies explain their joint policy that besmirched the reputations of the 350,000 residents of Yesha.

"No Jew has ever been caught uprooting olive trees and certainly not burning a mosque", he emphasized, adding "if a committee is not formed, we will have to do the work ourselves. This finger pointing at Jews without a shred of evidence is unpleasantly similar to Avishai Raviv, the Shabak provocateur, who did the same before Rabin's murder."

Jews living in Judea and Samaria have said for years that reports of Jews burning or cutting down Arab-owned olive trees are manufactured in order to create an olive harvest libel that earns sympathy for PA Arabs. In fact, they say, Jews are often the victims of Arab attacks during the harvest, while Arabs are given IDF protection.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140504

[shaayecanaan]

8. Truly, a bastion of progressive and liberal values...

I suppose by the logic of some here Arutz Sheva is liberal, the National Union is centre-left and Kahane Chai is Utopian Socialist.

[bemildred]

9. Very Alice-in-Wonderlandy.

"anarchists, radical leftists and Arabs"
"They enjoyed full cooperation of Israel's law enforcement agencies"
"No Jew has ever been caught uprooting olive trees"
"olive harvest libel"

Am I really supposed to believe that Israeli law enforcement colludes with "anarchists, radical leftists and Arabs" to make the settlers look bad?

[Celtic Merlin]

19. What a crock of shit is THAT collection of lies.

The one so ridiculous that it's actually funny is this one:
"Jews are often the victims of Arab attacks during the harvest, while Arabs are given IDF protection."

I rolled on the floor, LOL-ing over that one. What's next - Hamas attacked itself two years ago just so they could blame it all on the IDF and garner world sympathy? Perhaps we'll also hear from MK Katz that the commandos who murdered the men aboard the Gaza Relief Flotilla were Palestinians.

Some people will believe anything. It seems that MK Katz will SAY anything.

[Celtic Merlin]

15. Hooray for those "Leftists"!

To an Israeli colonist, everybody left of Kahane is a "leftist".

The land in question seems to be on the PALESTINIAN side of the Green Line, so it belongs to the Palestinians - NOT to the colonists.

The article states:
". . . they come to an area of natural woodland which has never been cultivated, burn it on purpose and at the same time plant trees."

I'd like to see the photos of a bunch of people planting trees while IN a forest fire. THAT would be some damn fine photojournalism!

The entire original message is a bunch of bullshit anyway. NEXT topic!

[alanquatermass]

20. Great line about Kahane!!! It seems to me...

-- that the Pro-Israel lobby believes that Hamas and the others are engaging in violence against the "Jewish State" for their health (LOL!) Or because they just "hate Jews" or something, which is utter bullshit.

Their land is OCCUPIED, and once the occupation ends, so will the violence. (Proviso: An end to Occupation also means a restoration of Equity, which includes a shared Jerusalem and a Palestinian Right of Return)

That is all.

[Celtic Merlin]

22. Well, the colonists sing songs to Kahane. That makes it an easy comparison.

I agree that when the Occupation ends (after only 43 years so far!), the chance of violence against Israel goes down tremendously. I further agree with the idea that Israel pulls all of its citizens (military AND colonists) back behind the Green Line and that those who refuse to return to the state of Israel become - by default - citizens of the new Palestinian state. This means that Jerusalem becomes a shared city.

The Right of Return will never be agreed to by Israel. I think that everyone knows this. Israel doesn't want the Arabs that it already has in Israel and who make up 1/5 of that nation's population. Why would they ever accept more? I feel that the PA must insist strongly on the Right of Return - mostly as a negotiating point - and give up on it only in exchange for Israel's respect for the Green Line. Then, you move the refugees into the colonies that Israel built. They'll at least have homes then, instead of tents and lean-to shelters.

Nice to make your acquaintance, Mr. Quartermass. I hope to see you in future I/P discussions. Defending basic Human Rights seems to be a difficult thing for so many Americans lately. It's good to meet somebody who isn't afraid of the Truth and is willing to speak up for it.

Celtic Merlin
Carlinist

[bemildred]

21. LOL. "Illegal congregation".

:puke: