More Settler Attacks, More Injustice

Attack No.1:

On Saturday we met a 44 year old Palestinian woman who had been attacked by a female Israeli settler on her way to work. The woman was at a bus shelter near Zatara checkpoint at around 9am waiting for the bus that would take her to work in the local council. As she waited, a group of settler women approached her. She recognised one of them to be a woman who had verbally abused her a month before, telling her that she was not allowed to use the bus shelter as it was ‘settler-only’. When the group reached her, the settler she recognised, who was in her mid-twenties, took a baton out of her bag and struck the Palestinian on the knee so hard that she was signed off work for 8 days and felt pain in her knee for almost 3 months. Too afraid to repeat her journey, the woman had to put in a transfer request and now works in a different district.

Not only was this incident cruel and vicious, but it also illustrates the chilling similarities of what is going on in Palestine with Apartheid South Africa and the discrimination against black people in the United States. Although there are no signs above the bus shelters designating them ‘settler-only’, there are enough civilians wielding batons to ensure that Palestinians know their place.

Attack No. 2:

On Monday night we were called out to the village of Immatin where settlers had attacked Palestinians working in their land. By the time we reached the village the attack had finished, but we met with the Palestinians who had been injured and they told us what had happened.

A father and son had been working in their field at around 5pm when they were approached by 5 settlers, 2 of them on horseback, 3 on foot. The settlers began shouting abuse at them and threatening to beat them if they did not leave their land. As about 15 Palestinians who were working in nearby fields came to help, the settlers moved to higher ground, where within minutes they were joined by up to 20 masked settlers. The settlers began throwing stones at the Palestinians and lighting fires on their land.

A number of Israeli soldiers arrived but they did nothing to stop the settlers. The father who had been working in his field, went to the soldiers and asked if they were going to stop the attack. As he was talking to the soldiers, a settler came between him and the soldiers and sprayed him with an unknown substance in his eyes, causing them to inflame and the skin on his face to burn. As he turned away, the settler hit him on the back of his head with a stick. When his son went to help the settler sprayed the son’s arms and hands with the substance and also beat him on the back of his head and the lower back. All along the soldiers stood there and did nothing to stop the attack.

The soldiers then moved to the higher ground and stood alongside the settlers. Instead of intervening as the settlers continued to light fires and throw stones, they fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the Palestinians as they tried to reach their land to put the fires out. One Palestinian was shot in the thigh by a rubber bullet and as he fell from the impact a soldier threw a tear gas canister directly at him. Eventually the settlers left and Palestinian firemen were able to put out the fires but not before 60 olive trees had been destroyed.

Attack No.3:

On Thursday we were called back to the same village as settlers were attacking once again. By the time we reached the village, after waiting 40 minutes at a checkpoint, the attack had ended. This time the settlers had set fire to over 50 dunums of land, destroying 130 olive trees (the picture on the left shows some of the burnt land). Once they had lit the fires, the settlers had left.

When we arrived at the village there were over 30 soldiers in the area. When we asked what they were doing there, one of them replied ‘We are here to prevent conflict’. We then asked him if they were making any efforts to arrest whoever was responsible for the fires. He replied that it was a matter for the police and gestured over his shoulder to where a number of policemen seemed to be sat twiddling their thumbs in a police jeep.

So having seen their land destroyed, the Palestinians were now surrounded by soldiers while the settlers continued their crusade. During the course of the afternoon a number of other villages reported similar attacks and it is thought that the same group of settlers were responsible. When we drove through one area a whole valley was filled with smoke. The Israeli army had closed the road leading to the affected villages so we were unable to enter to see or report on the damage. However when we spoke with somebody on the phone he said that a large group of settlers had reached the village of Burin where they had thrown stones at Palestinians, smashed cars, started fires and cut wires supplying electricity to the village.

It is thought that the settlers responsible came from local settler outposts (pictured right). Outposts are illegal even under Israeli law (any type of settlement is illegal under international law). They began to appear in the 1990s and are established when settlers take over new areas of land, generally on hilltops close to existing settlements, and set up mobile homes on the land and declare it to be a new settlement. Although supposedly illegal they are indirectly and often directly supported by the Israeli government. What generally happens is that the government declares them illegal but does nothing about them until eventually they begin to resemble an actual settlement, so then the government recognises them and pumps in the resources and incentives that other settlements receive.

Occasionally the government makes a symbolic attempt to dismantle the outposts (10 have been dismantled since 2001 but another 60 have been established). On Thursday the army made such an attempt and tried to remove a trailer from a local outpost that settlers had recently moved there and begun living in. When the army tried to remove the trailer, clashes broke out and the settlers then went on a rampage attacking the village of Burin and lighting the fires described above.

When Palestinians in Burin tried to stop the settlers the army arrived in the village, but far from being deterred, a settler grabbed a gun from one of the soldiers and fired several shots in the air. When he did this the soldiers standing by did nothing. If a Palestinian had done the same he would have been killed within seconds. I am not saying that the settler should have been killed but the incident illustrates the complete lawlessness and impunity with which the settlers act. Basically they have formed their own militia that even the might of the Israeli army is afraid, or perhaps unwilling, to challenge. If the army cannot even stand up to the settlers then what chance is there that they will protect Palestinian farmers and villagers from these gangs as they prowl the hillside in search of their prey.

The problem with settlements and outposts is two-fold. Not only are Palestinians subjected to attacks from their inhabitants but vast areas of land have been annexed by the Israelis for their creation. This leaves the prospects of peace based on a Palestinian state on pre-1967 borders (which unfortunately is the only likely outcome of the current era of 'negotiations') in tatters.

A staunch supporter of settlements and outposts was the former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose term in office ended in 2006 after he suffered a stroke. Thirty years ago Sharon was asked how Israelis should deal with Palestinians, he responded that, ‘We'll make a pastrami sandwich out of them. We'll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in twenty-five years time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.’ In 1998, while Israeli foreign minister, he publicly urged settlers to seize hilltops in order to break up the continuity of Palestinian areas, saying: ‘Let everyone get a move on and take some hilltops! Whatever we take, will be ours, and whatever we don't take, will not be ours!'

It has been Israeli policy since negotiations with Palestinians began to continually change the ‘facts on the ground’ so that every time the Palestinians negotiate they are in fact negotiating for less and less land. Each time the Israelis offer the Palestinians a state of their own in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it is not the same territory that they captured in 1967 but a shrunken shadow of this territory, punctured and dislocated by Israeli settlements. When the Palestinians refuse the offer (which also denies them the right to control their own borders, control of their own resources, freedom to choose their own capital and numerous other conditions synonymous with a sovereign state) it is they who are blamed for the failure of the peace talks (which is what happened in Camp David in 2000).

While the negotiations stall, the Israelis continue to grab more and more land through the expansion and establishment of settlements and outposts (there are currently over 400,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem) so that next time they offer the Palestinians a state it will be a further reduced and dissected one. The pressure from the international community (mainly the US) is for the Palestinians to accept the state being offered by Israel but where is the justice in this proposed state?

In 1948 after the creation of the state of Israel, the Palestinians were left with 22% of the land of Palestine which comprised the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In 1967 the Israelis occupied this territory, subjected its population to a brutal occupation and have since taken a further 40% of their land for settlements, infrastructure, military bases and the continuing construction of the Apartheid Wall. Now the Palestinians are criticised for not accepting the offer of a state that resembles a butchered array of cantons, where vast amounts of land, used to support a historically agricultural population, have been taken and many villages and towns are cut off from each other in enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements through which they are unable to pass.

Settlements have dire consequences for the daily life of Palestinians and for the prospects of peace in the region. These consequences are compounded by the fact that settlers appear to have been given free reign to attack Palestinians. Police investigations are scarce and ineffective and although occasionally arrested, settlers are very rarely brought to justice. So not only have Palestinians lost their land and their homes and been cut off from family, friends and livelihoods, they must now live in fear of attack from those responsible, despite the fact that the very existence of settlers is illegal under international law.