'Jewish settler attack' on film

[subsuelo]

Footage from a video camera handed out by an Israeli human rights group appears to show Jewish settlers beating up Palestinians in the West Bank.

An elderly shepherd, his wife and a nephew said they were attacked by four masked men for allowing their animals to graze near the settlement of Susia.

The rights group, B'Tselem, said the cameras were provided to enable Palestinians to get proof of attacks.

A spokesman for the Israeli police said that an investigation was under way.

So far, no-one has been arrested.

BBC - read more

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. Where are the Palestinian human rights groups filming rocket grendades? n/t

[madeline_con]

4. They're busy filming Apache helicoptor attacks. n/t

[madeline_con]

2. It's called Shooting Back...

Shooting Back: The Israeli Human Rights Group B’Tselem Gives Palestinians Video Cameras to Document Life Under Occupation.

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/26/shooting_back_the_israeli_human_rights

THIS is why there is no peace!

[Scurrilous]

17. B'Tselem cameras pay off for victims of settler attacks

<snip>

"Three months ago, the B'Tselem human rights organization gave Muna al-Nawaja a video camera. Nawaja, 24, lives near the Israeli settlement of Sussya, in the southern West Bank. Between caring for her young son and tending the family's sheep, she learned to use the camera, fell in love with it and now carries it with her everywhere.

But its "baptism of fire" occurred last week, on Sunday afternoon. Most Israelis were busy preparing for the Shavuot holiday. But some had a different priority: savagely beating Nawaja's relatives. She managed to capture a few seconds of the beating - in which her 57-year-old aunt was severely injured, and two uncles, age 60 and 33 were hurt - on film. But she never dreamed that it would prove to be the main, and possibly only, evidence available to the police investigating the assault.

"There have been previous incidents in this area in which Palestinians were beaten; that is why they gave me a camera," she explained two days ago."

<snip>

"B'Tselem, which used to make do with collecting oral testimony from Palestinians about alleged crimes against them, concluded last year that more graphic documentation was needed, on the theory that a picture is worth 1,000 words.

"From our past experience, in many cases a Palestinian's word is given less weight than that of a soldier, a policeman or a settler," explained Oren Yakobovich, who heads the organization's video distribution project. He said a large American Jewish organization, whose members visited Hebron and were shocked, donated a substantial sum of money to purchase the cameras.

As part of its "Shooting Back" project, B'Tselem has distributed about 100 cameras to Palestinians throughout the West Bank over the last year. Of these, several dozen were handed out in the Hebron area, where friction between Palestinians and Israelis is routine."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/993346.html

[Scurrilous]

3. More settler news:

Settler youths who staged kidnapping nearly lynched

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3554822,00.html

Palestinian security forces able to extract settler teenagers from angry local mob after former caught breaking into Palestinian car

<snip>

"Police are continuing their investigation into the 'kidnapping' staged by two Israeli settler youths, aged 15 and 16, students from Yitzhar. The two entered the Palestinian village of Ein Abus, located near Nablus, in the early hours of Thursday morning and reported they had been kidnapped.

Palestinian witnesses said the teens broke into a parked vehicle and were nearly lynched by the mob that quickly assembled at the scene."We hit them everywhere, gave them a ‘generous’ welcome and didn’t leave any part of them untouched" one of the Palestinians who witnessed the scene told Ynet.

The two apparently tried to escape after having been caught in the act of breaking into a Palestinian car.

It was later reported that the investigation revealed that the settlers were planning to set Palestinian vehicles on fire.

The Palestinians said that the settler youths also stabbed and lightly wounded a passerby.

Luckily, Palestinian security forces managed to extract the youths in time. For a yet unexplained reason, the Israeli boys decided to alert Israeli forces to the scene by lying and saying they had been abducted. IDF, Shin Bet and police forces were all summoned to the scene and were outraged to find they'd been had."

[madeline_con]

5. "... alert Israeli forces to the scene by lying..." Not surprised. n/t

[Fredda Weinberg]

6. Nah ... Israelis would have to start their kids young to make proper suicide bombers

These were amateurs.

[Vegasaurus]

7. Give 'em an assault rifle to carry around when they are young boys

or dress 'em up as suicide bombers when they are babies:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2071561.stm

[Fredda Weinberg]

8. Here's the funny thing ... I went through Zionist leadership training.

I never picked up a gun or learned anything destructive. All of us who prepared for aliyah were expected to learn Arabic as well as Hebrew. It's so strange to come to DU and be labeled the enemy ... I thought I'd have to move to Israel to experience that kind of alienation.

[subsuelo]

9. DU labeled you the enemy?

When did this occur?

[shaayecanaan]

10. Is this your usual response to seeing old men being bludgeoned with axe handles?

Probably not. Rhetorical question, I know. Pity the camera work is so poor, it would have been quite compelling otherwise.

The fellow doing the swinging looks in reasonable shape, I dare say it hurt more than a tad. Pasty looking white bloke, American, perhaps. I wonder what he would be doing now if he were back in USA. Probably not swinging axe-handles at Arabs, I would think. I wonder why his family bothered to pack up all their stuff and trek halfway across the world to Israel, when he could have stayed at home, gotten drunk, screwed hot chicks, get old, get fat, and die. Maybe thats the point - he was fed up with the ennui of modern existence and was hungry to go on the great crusade. I suppose someone who leaves a prosperous country and a pleasant life to move to Israel and impose themselves on miserable Arabs is a person liable to feel strongly about things. Strongly enough to hit someone with an axe handle.

... I thought I'd have to move to Israel to experience that kind of alienation.

Or you could move to South Africa. Or Belfast. You wouldnt believe how alienated the Ulster Protestants in Northern Ireland feel. They fly the English flag from every pole, yet most English don't give a shit for them and think that, after 600 years, they should just consider themselves Irish and be done with it. Give the whole fucking island to Ireland. As long as I dont have to send my boy to drive an armored car around Derry and be shot at by Republicans. Matribus bella detestae.

You don't like blacks? Dont go to Africa. You don't like Arabs? Don't go to the middle East. Its nothing personal on the part of the Arabs. They reacted exactly the same way when the WASPs turned up during the crusades and wanted to colonise the country. You have the opportunity, as a privileged white person, to sit on your arse in the sun, breed, and pad out your arse with beer and strawberry Haagen Dasz. An option you have taken up, given that you evidently haven't moved to Israel. An option not available to many Palestinians, or indeed to two-thirds of the human race. What have you got to complain for?

[LeftishBrit]

11. You are pretty out-of-date about Belfast.

They have peace now. Just like I hope will be the case for the Israelis and Palestinians.

[shaayecanaan]

14. Or maybe I'm before my time?

I'd say that the 18 miles of separation barrier in Belfast make it more of a detente than a peace.

The Protestants should be given the option of accepting Irish citizenship or being resettled in England.

[Violet_Crumble]

15. That was my solution for the Falklands...

If they considered themselves English and wanted to remain citizens then they should have been moved to the UK. It would have saved a lot of unnecessary bloodshed...

[shaayecanaan]

18. To be fair the Falklands were genuinely terra nullius

when the British found them. Their claim to them is a lot sounder than in the case of most former British colonies.

What I can't understand is why only British people seem to want to occupy far flung specks in the middle of the ocean. St Helena, Tristan de Cunha, Falklands, are all tiny spots with enough land to support several hundred people at most. You don't see Spaniards or French grabbing the chance to sit on a shag rock to fish and fuck their cousins for the rest of their lives.

[notfullofit]

12. Wow! nt

[harun]

13. No one is labeling you anything. Also it was an Israeli human rights

group that worked to get camera's out to people being treated this way. People know a lot of Israeli's are working for good. Not all act like this, beating old helpless shepherds.

[Scurrilous]

16. Police arrest 2 settlers on suspicion of assaulting Palestinians

Police follow up on footage of Palestinian shepherds allegedly attacked by settlers, arrest two men from Susya

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3556729,00.html

<snip>

"Two settlers from the West Bank settlement of Susya were arrested Tuesday, in connection with the attack reported by Palestinian shepherds, which took place near the Mouth Hebron, last week.

The two men, one of whom is a minor, were arrested after a covert operation by the Judea and Samaria and Hebron Districts Police. They were taken in for questioning in the Hebron Districts Police headquarters. Police sources told Ynet additional arrests are expected.

According to the police report, Four members of a Palestinian-Nawage family claimed they were assaulted by veiled settlers while they were herding their sheep in the south Mount Hebron area, seriously wounding one woman. The family further claimed they had footage of the assault.

The footage was later obtained and published by the B'Tselem organization.

Another assault was reported Monday, as Palestinian shepherds complained that settlers attacked them near the west Bank settlement of Yitzhar."