While you were sleeping: The systematic terrorization of Burin

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://972mag.com/while-you-were-sleeping-the-systematic-terrorization-of-burin/84239/

To paraphrase Tolstoy, every village in the West Bank is miserable in its own way. The curse of Burin, in the Nablus region, is that it neighbors two particularly troublesome settlements, Har Bracha and Yitzhar. Attacks by Israeli civilians coming from these settlements against the residents of Burin are almost daily occurrences; in one recent week, no fewer than four such attacks were documented. (More about Burin, see here).

The problem with these attacks has less to do with the Israeli civilians and more with the fact that they are generally accompanied by IDF soldiers who protect them even when they carry out pogroms. There’s a standard procedure for these attacks: the Israeli civilians descend on the village in order to attack it, sometimes attacking the school or some of the outlying, isolated buildings; the villagers organize themselves for self defense and throw stones at the invaders; and then, the strongest army in the Middle East rushes in and fires tear gas canisters, stun grenades and from time to time rubber-coated, or even live bullets, at the villagers. All of which happens not while the Palestinian residents attack or raid a settlement, but when they are trying to defend themselves and their homes.

And the aid the IDF supplies to the marauders does not end here. Last November, a pogrom broke out according to the outline above. A large group of Israeli civilians came down from one of the hilltop outposts toward the village. The residents of Burin, who already know this routine by rote, went out to push them off their property. Shortly afterwards, IDF troops arrived on the scene, and instead of evacuating the invaders and defending the residents, they outdid themselves. This time they did not limit themselves to shooting tear gas canisters and throwing stun grenades at the Palestinians who tried to defend their village; they threw stun grenades into the house of a child, H, age 14, and threatened his mother, M., that if she didn’t open the door, they’d keep throwing them into the house.