Rattling the Cage: Kids are innocent, settlements aren’t

[azurnoir]

Itamar is a spearhead of the occupation – a foray deep into the Palestinians’ midst, a wedge in their contiguity and an obstacle to their expansion, a fact on the ground meant to make Palestinian statehood impossible. It’s for radical nationalists, preferably religious ones, only.

These settlers and the soldiers who defend them are the rulers of the land, while the Palestinians in villages like Awarta live under their guns. We know everything about the Israelis who get killed by Palestinians; we know nothing about the much larger number of Palestinians who get killed by Israelis.

None of this, nothing in the world, justifies the stabbing to death of a family in their beds at night. But since that horrible night, the settlement of Itamar has become identified with the Fogel family, with the murdered children – with their victimhood, their innocence – and that’s a distortion of reality.

The settlement of Itamar is not a victim and not innocent. It is a hotbed of Arab-hatred, Jewish supremacism and violence. It’s an example of what’s wrong with the occupation – as is the just-concluded IDF, Shin Bet and police blowout in Awarta.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=217326

[Ken Burch]

1. Well put

The killing of the Fogels, loathesome and inexcusable as it is, does not sanctify the settlements.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. 
[link:www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html|Click
here] to review the message board rules.

[azurnoir]

3. Itamar has hardly been a quiet little place

The IDF prohibit Palestinian farmers from working at their fields close to the settlement and are required to protect them during the olive harvest.<29> However, residents of Itamar and its outposts have been reported harassing and killing local Palestinians, damaging their property and obstructing their access to land, particularly during the olive harvest. They have reportedly stolen olives,<30> prevented Palestinian farmers from reaching their land, even when accompanied by international activists,<31> shot at farmers picking their olives,<32> or grazing their animals.<33> They have set fire to hundreds of olive trees and thousands of dunam of cultivated land belonging to local Palestinians.<34><35> The small village of Yanun, which is flanked by the settlement's outposts, particularly suffers from constant harassment and attacks, which caused the villagers to abandon their village in October 2002 and move to the larger nearby village of Aqraba.<36>

In some cases, the Itamar settler's violence has resulted in deaths. Among the victims are Farid Musa Issa Nasasrah (28) from Beit Furik and Hani Bani Maniya (22) from Aqraba.<37> Nasasrah died shortly after arriving at the hospital in Nablus, after two settlers shot at him and members of his family in October 2000 while they were picking olives on their land outside of Beit Furik, wounding four of them. Two Itamar residents who were suspected to be responsible for the killing were arrested and released after five days for "insufficient evidence".<38> Maniya was killed and two others were wounded in a similar attack in October 2002, while harvesting olives near the village of Aqraba.<39> In September 2004, Itamar resident Yehoshua Elitzur shot and killed Sa'il Mustafa Ahmad Jabarah (46),<37> a Palestinian Taxi driver from Salem, near the Itamar junction. Elitzur was convicted of manslaughter, was released to house arrest, did not show up in court for his verdict and disappeared.<40>

This page was last modified on 21 April 2011 at 14:48.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar

would you like to explore murders in Israel over the past month?

[Ken Burch]

4. OK...basically three graphs of bigotry there...

"Falsetinian ProPALganda"? Really?

Alerted...and I hope you enjoy the pizza.

[Ken Burch]

5. Thank God that was removed

It was just cut-and-paste from flame posts in the comment box of the story anyway.

[azurnoir]

6. felt 'sock puppety' to me n/t