West Bank riot illustrates essence of occupation
http://972mag.com/west-bank-riot-illustrates-essence-of-occupation/86410/
On April 25th, 2013, Raed Mahmoud Ahmad Sabah was in his house in the village of ‘Urif when he noticed three Israeli civilians, all wearing hoods, approaching his house from the nearby settlement of Yitzhar. Shortly afterwards, a settlement security vehicle joined the group, and out stepped a man who Sabah identified as a settlement security officer. Several minutes late, two IDF vehicles arrived, out of which emerged a handful of soldiers. The squad of hooded Israelis was reinforced by even more hooded Israelis who also came from the direction of Yitzhar. Together they began to hurl stones at Sabah’s home and at the neighboring houses and uprooting saplings. The Israeli soldiers, along with the settlement security officer, just stood about aimlessly.
Only when the young men of ‘Urif gathered to defend themselves and their property, did the army spring into action. Naturally, the IDF and Border Police began firing tear gas canisters at the Palestinians. Sabah would later count seven tear gas canisters in his courtyard. The Israeli rioters used the opportunity to sneak back home under cover of the gas. Needless to say, none of them were detained.
Yitzhar is one of the most notoriously radical settlements. Its municipal council recently resigned (Hebrew) after its residents decided to stop cooperating with the IDF and appointed suspected criminal Boaz Albert (Hebrew) as their representative to the army. Last August, the settlers denied Druze workers entry to the settlements. At the time, the army decided once more to give in (Hebrew) and sent Jewish workers in their stead. Yitzhar is home to the Od Yosef Khai Yeshiva (religious school), whose rabbis published the gentile-slaying manual, “Torat HaMelekh.” The yeshiva students operate the “HaKol HaYehudi” website, which several years ago published an article (Hebrew) by Yossi Elizur, which detailed the principles of “arvut hadadit,” the name given by the settlers at the time to the terror acts which became known as “price tag” attacks. The security system alleges that several Yitzhar residents are involved in a series of “price tag” incidents, as well as daily terror attacks on Palestinians.
So, this was just another story of the usual riot and collaboration by the army. We’ve become inured to that. Sabah, who possesses a sense of humor, complained to the Military Police Criminal Investigations Department (MPCID) about the behavior of the soldiers, as well as to the police over the settlers and settlement security officers. This, it must be noted, is his second complaint: three months earlier, Sabah lodged another complaint about a settler attack.