More peaceful, noble actions from a settler community. i am particularly impressed at the manner in which the IDF immediately came to the rescue of this female Israeli journalist.
Just included the second half of the article, although the first half is IMHO equally worth reading. (Just so everyone knows i am not intent on exaggerating - the part of the title, “settler wrath”, is from the Israeli Ha’aretz’s own website).
Fear and loathing in Hebron, Amira Hass, Ha’aretz, 18 November 2002
On Saturday afternoon an urgent call came through to the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in the old city of Hebron. This is a group of Christian volunteers from various countries that has set as its aim peaceful intervention in places where there are crises and conflicts: Colombia, New York City, Iraq, Hebron. The members of the group, who live in the old city of Hebron, were asked to come and stay in the home of one of the families that live near the “worshipers’ way.” The members of the family knew that on Saturday evening the Jewish settlers from Kiryat Arba and Hebron were intending to hold a rally in the large plot of land in the northern part of the Wadi Nasara neighborhood, right at the exit from Kiryat Arba. From experience, they said, they knew that such events led to attacks on the houses. One family in the neighborhood had already hastened to flee from its small, old, isolated stone house, which is opposite the lot, and having no alternative, had to accept hospitality from the neighbors.
Thus, at 8 P.M., the members of the CPT found themselves in the midst of a mass of Israelis who had gathered there. They did not understand what the speakers were saying, and they did not know that the moderator repeatedly said: “We are calling upon people not to take the law into their own hands.” They just watched dozens of children of the Jewish settlers as they spread out among the ruins of what had been, until that morning, a vineyard and groves, run toward the houses of the neighborhood and throw stones at the windows of the houses on the edges. They saw some of those soldiers mingling with them and trying to stop them from getting too close to the center of the dark neighborhood.
Later they saw a large group of police, who also came down into the valley where the trees had been uprooted. But they did not see that any of the police were trying to prevent teenage boys and girls and a few women from throwing stones at the windows and using sticks to break windows of houses and about 10 cars.
I asked some police who were sitting in a Jeep with the license plate 80-503 why they were not stopping the children from smashing windowpanes right at the corner, 10 meters away from them. “Thanks for reporting to us,” they said, and slowly, one by one, they came out of the Jeep. Later it would turn out that their job was to protect the police photographer.
One of the women who passed by heard the question or guessed what the question had been and began to scream things like: “Bitch. She called the police. Where were you yesterday?”
She was joined by other women with a variety of curses. Other people began to crowd around and they were joined by more women, teenagers, all of them screaming, hitting out and pushing. The CPT people tried to intervene, but the circle grew tighter and the screaming increased.
Somebody grabbed my jacket, snatched my notebook and threw it up into the air. Others prevented me from picking it up. More people crowded around and one woman began to hit me. A man with a long, gray beard tried to calm her down and to explain to her that she was overwrought because of the massacre. He suggested that I get into a car and get out of there fast. A teenage girl secretly returned the notebook to me and disappeared quickly.
“Let’s get her out of here, otherwise it will be bad,” urged one woman.
A teenage boy was heard saying: “Let’s grab her glasses.”
The circle around me grew tighter. A hubbub of shouting and imprecations in sabra, Russian, American and French accents rose from the circle. Suddenly a hand reached out and snatched my glasses.
“Let’s get her out of here,” the woman continued to plead.
“Without glasses I can’t leave,” I said.
“Your glasses are gone. Forget about them,” said someone. Twenty or 30 meters away stood dozens of soldiers and police. None of them showed up.
The CPT did all they could to calm the crowd down. Suddenly Channel One reporter Muki Hadar appeared. Somehow, his tall frame worked as a restraining influence. The circle began to grow looser. Only then could I safely reach the military Jeep that was parked opposite. Only then did representatives of the IDF show up, who suggested waiting until the people dispersed. A soldier suddenly held out a black plastic bag to me: One of the children had asked him to give it to “that woman.” Inside it were my glasses. Broken.
“Wait” was also the delayed advice of the policeman, from whom only a direct appeal extracted a promise to “protect.” One policeman passed the mission along to another who, in turn, as in a relay race, passed the mission of “protecting” along to a third policeman. Ultimately, when that third policeman got ready to ride a bus back home, made it clear that it was not his job to protect. “Go to the policeman who promised you protection,” he said.
Until midnight, scores of inhabitants of Kiryat Arba remained in the valley, many of them boys and girls under the age of 18. A few teenage girls showed up with a bucket of paint and wrote “Am Yisrael hai” (the people of Israel lives) and “Vengeance” on the iron door of one of the neighborhood shops. In the houses in the Palestinian neighborhood, no one dared to sleep, from fear. They left the lights extinguished.