Rally Calls for Amona Inquiry
The theme was “Olmert is bad for the Jews” at the rally tonight at Zion Square in Jerusalem. Organized by the Yesha Council of Jewish Settlements, speakers at the rally called for the formulation of “a state commission of inquiry into what they called “the brutal police violence” during the eviction of thousands of settlers from the illegal outpost, where more than 200 people were injured in the worst clashes between settlers and police in years.”
Many of the 80,000-100,000 attendees were teenagers and pockets of the rally had a rock concert feel to it. There were lit lighters hoisted in the air and orange-clad groups of boys wearing knitted kippahs eyeing long skirted groups of girls. It was kinda sweet and many clearly relished the opportunity to be out on a relatively balmy Sunday evening.
You can read more about the rally at the Jerusalem Post and/or Haaretz.
- Hawk Tuah Girl Haliey Welch is Not Jewish. Probably. - 8/9/2024
- Jews Blessed by their High Priests - 10/14/2022
- Foolproof Mufletta Recipe & Muflettapalooza / Mimouna Invite! - 3/26/2021
modafinil 100mg price buy modafinil 100mg generic buy provigil pills
It sucks that a few would make things so much more difficult for the many. That is another point that both sides of this don’t seem to get. There were amongst the police that let loose more then the others and felt they could get away with that.
The truth is, if the police wanted to, they would have a damn good case to a Bait Din. A Bait Din that even the rowdiest settler fraction would go along with.
So would many on the other side of the baton or bulldozer also have thier case. However, it seems the current bulldozer people side wouldn’t deal with a Bait Din, only thier politicos and civil court advocates. One day things may change and the kind of Government the police and bulldozer people work for and what kind of Court they answer to. Untill then, the delusional messichists don’t have much of a choice about thier lot.
Because this squable with just a few settlers and what, 9 houses, in Amona is nothing, right?
It makes for good distraction for what else going on. What else could be happening?
Nothing at all…. bussiness as usuall.
Shabat Shalom Josh
Whatever, I hear ya.
Whoever was in Amona, trying to get in the way of police bulldozers, knew that by being in the same area of a few stonethrowers (probably not even dependant on them), they (and their parents) were waiving any civil rights they thought they had. Gotcha. Only now did that all become clear and as well as the fact that themiddle is always right.
Shabbat shalom.
Word.
I didn’t hear or see of any evidense of rape or sexual conduct by the police. I didn’t see the women and girls, old and sick men with the cinder blocks either. Evidense may prove there was, I don’t know from both cases. It would seem that the brick throwing at the police got out of line. There is also a guilt that many of the parents of those kids didn’t really take the right responsibility to restrain that level of action.
The police apparently did assault the women and girls in personnel places in their bodies that seemed to me way out line. So which side are you going to take?
Some say Police, some say brick chucking Messianic phanatics….
Maybe both are guilty?
In the theatrical atmosphere of these confrontations, there seem to be those amongst us who like to compare the “settlers” to “palestinians.” That is another area where there is something of guilt on both sides. We could go on with examples. I personnally am loath at such a chicken shit analogy. I don’t even want to go there, its just crap.
We will see how easy life will be without the Gaza strip to manage now that the “settlement enterprise” isn’t there.
We will see how things will go with these “settlement enterprise” removals as they happen.
I am not convinced that we will pay more of a price for not having the “settlement enterprise” in Gaza. Also, how much more are we going to pay once the settlements on the chopping block are removed?
So tell me anybody:
How have things just been improved since last September?
It has been several months. We should know something by now, right?
What has happened since then?
The March elections haven’t happened either. There is some indication that Kadima and Olmert are going to win. That all could change in a short time leaving who knows what….
So, let the army and police practice on settlers. One day, who knows when those some police and army units are going to deal with some other rowdy group of trouble makers. We don’t know from which group or from where.
Josh, I find the story very hard to believe. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems very odd to me that after decades of police activity in a variety of events, it so happens that at this one the police suddenly decided to scream at the girls that they’re going to rape them. I do believe they may have touched the girls, but that often happens when police attempt to remove protesters from where they shouldn’t be. I doubt the touching had ulterior motives, however, because all the reports seem to indicate that the police were under quite a bit of pressure. For some reason, I don’t think copping a feel or telling girls they were going to fuck them was uppermost on their mind. But what do I know, I didn’t have a daughter go out to prevent the police from doing what the government mandated.
Try this for starters (in hebrew):
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/1,7340,L-3212050,00.html
If you post an email, I can send you an 1800 word testimony (in hebrew) in .doc format.
This is really talking trash
(in case that link didn’t pop the intended article)
IDF Held Accountable For Large-Scale Littering at Amona
10:46 Feb 07, ’06 / 9 Shevat 5766
By Ezra HaLevi
The Society For the Protection of Nature has protested the fact that the IDF left the rubble of the homes it destroyed in Amona, as well as the remains of roadblocks it erected, against the law.
The Shomronbranch of the Society delivered its protest in writing to IDF Central Commander Yair Naveh. In addition to protesting the fact that huge piles of rubble were left in Amona, the group included pictures of piles of garbage and waste left haphazardly by soldiers in places where checkpoints had been set up to prevent activists from reaching Amona.
“I am writing to inform you that I intend to press charges against you personally for criminal infractions violating sanitary laws due to the large concentrations of garbage left at junctions and on the sides of the road where roadblocks were set up during the house-destruction in Amona,” the society’s chairman Yitzchak Meir wrote in his letter to Naveh. “I similarly intend to file charges regarding the piles of building materials left by your men in Amona.”
Copies of the letter were sent to the Environment Ministry, to the Civil Administration and to the Binyamin Regional Municipal Council.
The Society For the Protection of Nature is a municipal body charged with enacting environmental regulations in the region. According to the law, the rubble of a demolished building is the responsibility of whoever demolished it – the IDF in the case of Amona.
The closest appropriate dump is located in Bareket, near Ben Gurion Airport. Another option for the rubble is to bring in heavy equipment to crush the remaining rubble for use in future foundations. If one of the options is not carried out by Central Commander Naveh, the Society for the Protection of Nature warns that he will be prosecuted for abandoning building refuse.
Click here for our free Daily News Report from Israel
Published: 10:39 February 07, 2006
Last Update: 10:46 February 07, 2006
E-mail Print Homepage Top of page
Comment on this story
——————————————————————————–
All rights reserved IsraelNationalNews
Talking trash here
http://israelnationalnews.com/index.php3
Josh,
Messianism has everything to do with this. Only those who are caught up in a fanatical, divinely-sanctioned fervor will show such disregard for their countrypeople and such willingness to put their own children at risk.
Anyway, what sexual assaults are you referring to? Please cite a source.
What does messianism have to do with this? Why change the subject from police brutality to finding a justification for it?
Amona was coming down. Period. There shouldn’t have been buses laden with people traveling there specifically to prevent a government sanctioned action. There shouldn’t have been anything other than a sit-down peaceful protest.
Yeah, I hear you, demonstrations are a waste of time in democracies.
Anyway, I wasn’t there, and neither were you, but from what I read from multiple personal accounts (did you bother verifying anything other than news reports and your own assumptions before building your opinion) was that the plan was to be a passive sit-down protest. Rabbis were there with their classes, Ulpana teachers with their girls – all to show them the effective use of protesting an issue they felt strongly about instead of just letting life go on. A) I’m sure that some kids were looking for trouble, no one denies that, but B) and I get this from many of the testimonials, was that when others saw the police overreact, even from when they arrived in the middle of the night, they decided to throw objects as well, and another ‘but’, most of the protesters stayed passive and didn’t fight back the entire time, even the girls who were sexually and psychologically assaulted. I’ve read many accounts of people wanting to leave the scene, leave the houses and not make trouble, but the police troopers would not let them out before drawing blood from each one. I’ve read of a couple of MDA medics were were beaten as well and specifically told not to come forward (one did anyway).
I told you there was nothing to discuss with you. Even if some people had died there, you’d still be in ‘they should have known what to expect’ mode. And again, no one is looking for your sympathy. They/we are merely trying to show you that something sadistic went on, and that it will one day come looking for you as well. Mob says that ‘we’ (Israel and other non-far-leftists) didn’t say anything when the Palestinians were abused after the fact, no one said anything when the ultra-orthodox were abused at their Shabbat/grave exhuming protests, no one said anything [substantial] when the far-leftists were abused at their ‘protests’, and you and most others are denying that anything was wrong with the police reaction at Amona either. I have no doubt about this degradation into a police state. The next time a workers protest blocks a road and gets loud, we should be ready when the Yasam comes and bash heads too, all with government support.
Haifadude, it’s been tried before. But I’m already beyond that. My point is that if a kid throws a stone, and even wounds a policeman, then the only thing that should be done to him if his hands are now empty, is pushed to the ground and handcuffed. What happened in Amona was that the police were not selective at all and charged anything that moved and especially if they talked back and asked for mercy.
Just a suggestion: why don’t they all get together and agree on what’s aceptable in a demonstration and what’s not? (In, say, a meeting including Mazuz, Wallerstein, a minister, a shabak representative and a few prominent rabbis.)
For instance, as a demonstrator, you can use megaphones, you can shout and cry, you can handcuff yourself as much as you want to get enough time in front of TV… but you cannot touch policemen in any way and you cannot throw stuff at them.
As long as you do what’s allowed, you can demonstrate. If you start using violence, you get the “go to jail” card.
They’re becoming marginalized because their expectations are that Israel will continue to support the settlement enterprise despite the huge costs involved and the risk it poses from a demographic and international relations standpoint.
I mean, Josh, it’s not Israel’s fault that messianism has taken hold of the settlement movement. If you guys are going in another direction and assume that you’re being alienated because you’ve decided to go in that direction then why not come back into the fold. It’s easy: stop setting yourselves up as victims and opponents. The country needs you to move into defensible borders and stop dreaming that somehow 2 million Palestinians are going to disappear.
As for the violence that took place, violence is never excusable. Right? So why on earth did those settles have rocks and concrete blocks at the ready? Why did the police suspect they would have guns and set up snipers? Why was there an officer mole in the IDF’s Samaria command sending information to settlers informing them about the police’s timetable? Amona was coming down. Period. There shouldn’t have been buses laden with people traveling there specifically to prevent a government sanctioned action. There shouldn’t have been anything other than a sit-down peaceful protest. But there wasn’t, and claiming alienation is not an excuse. Next thing you know you’ll start burning embassies and blaming it on Western governments.
Oy,
why do I let myself get dragged into this?
Please remember, no one wants your sympathy, only for you to wake up: http://tinyurl.com/8e5xc
Okay. michael/middle, so you’re saying that if house #3 has been relentlessly dumping cinder blocks on police heads for a half hour but then run out of blocks, sit down, lock arms, and wait, THEN, by your justice, the police are justified to get on the roof and draw blood from every single human? Well, the kids violated the law, right?
Let me paraphrase Middle: ‘People who violate the law should expect to get bashed with a hardwood police batton on the head and other body parts. Even if they are 15 year old girls holed up in house #5.’
middle,
Do we have to get into why and how, post dolphinarium attack, an incensed third of the voters gave Sharon their confidence to whip terrorist butt and not to implement the Mitzna plan to unilaterally retreat from Gush Katif, that they/we should have known that he would:
A) pull a 180 and announce a unilateral retreat from Gush Katif,
B) ignore his Likud platform and constitution,
C) ignore an internal likud referendum he promised to abide by
D) actually implement Mitzna’s unilateral retreat,
E) not seriously fight terrorism,
F) severely wound the likud by breaking off with a sizable splinter group but not its debt,
G) lie to the public about severe health problems,
H) roll over and leave Olmert (from the irrelevant #33 position in the last elections) in charge,
I) have state attorney Mazuz interpret the ‘law’ and leave Olmert in power even though Sharon is virtually permanently incapacitated,
J)all while the media protects Sharon, his splinter group, and the new splinter party like the home team.
I already know that the ‘people’ will vote for a combined 80 seats of the same thing (labour, likud, kadima). My ‘movement’ has long since been convinced that it has no political power, no matter how many ministers it has in the government, or how many seats are coloured orange in the knesset. I’ve been trying to tell you that many, many people are simply not going to vote because they have given up on this ‘democracy’. NU, waffled, Mafdal betrayed them, and no one misses a change to say that voting for Marzel is throwing away your vote – so why bother anyway? But you reaction is ‘so what if a growing sector of society is becoming marginalized and alienated. Sucks to be them.’
The situation called for the settlers there not to attack, not prepare to riot, not have rocks and concrete blocks to use on the police, not attempt to subvert the law by preventing their evacuation. In fact, what they did was intentional and intended to create some form of battleground. This, it is well known by people like those at Al Qaeda, is a tried and true recruiting tactic. For that matter, the people at Fatah and Hamas know very well how to send children to fight the army/police and how to capitalize on the resulting injuries and horrendous photographs.
It’s sad that it has come to this, but Israel needs to be a country of laws where the law is respected. These people intentionally violate the law.
Oh and Josh, you keep claiming this is an illegitimate government doing illegitimate things. You did the same during the disengagement. This is a legitimate government and its actions are entirely legitimate. What are you going to say on March 28 when those who support your movement garner a handful of seats compared to the dozens that other parties gain?
Michael, my prediction was made when I still believed that Israel was a real democracy. It’s since been proven otherwise.
‘Revisionism’ – only a week later. If you were really following the ‘news’, you would have heard that the Amona people denied MYesha leadership rights on the struggle and went it alone. Go to their site, no mention of Myesha.
I never denied rocks were thrown. If you don’t want to believe me that the police injured hundreds of people who were not resisting, then believe what you want. Video and stills sho otherwise. The police broke the law, hundreds of times that day, and you will blindly support it. Good for you.
The situation demanded the police call a ‘time out’, distance themselves and work with cool heads. But it was more important ‘not to negotiate’ with troublemakers.
Don’t believe me, who cares. I’m just warning you that if in the past the ‘extremists’ could be defined as Kahanists and Folks from Yitzhar, then let it be known that many ‘normal’ people have joined the ranks of those who view the government and security forces leadership as illegitimate and not to be trusted.
They settle in these places to prevent the places from being returned. That is what Mr. Arnon told me regarding Chevron.
You make it sound like all the protestors were strung together hand to hand singing Kumbaya. It was a riot. Riot police are forced to respond differently to criminals than in a one-on-one situation. When you have protestors using potentially deadly force, physical restraint is called for. You can’t just say “time out” and stop the riot long enough go up and arrest the bad kids on the roof.
And if your argument about the children going of their own accord because they’re “sick of bending over and letting the disengagement happen,” which itself smacks of revisionism to make the settler leadership guiltless in all this violence, it’s still a pretty poor commentary on the nature of settler youth, who somehow think it’s appropriate to attack police and soldiers. And don’t act like this kind of stuff isn’t encouraged by the settler old guard. I was there at that protest in Jerusalem. I heard it from the stage. “You are the best youth in the world.” These kids are systematically radicalized to do the dirty work for their parents and elders, who can shrug and say “It wasn’t us! They did it themselves because we just couldn’t contain them anymore!” when the blood starts flying.
And as I recall, you claimed the disengagement from Gaza wouldn’t happen. Looks like you were wrong. I don’t think I’ll be putting much stock in your clairvoyant abilities. If the settlers and their ilk are marginalized, it’s because they purposely removed themselves from Israeli society in order to fulfill their own short-sighted holy messianist-nationalist vision.
Jobber,
these people are pioneers, ‘doers’ and this ‘romance’ attracts some people living in the States with dull, 9-5 urban lifestyles. By donating to a settlement, you can feel part of building the land. As for Americans moving to the territories, you got to be kidding. One neighbourhood in Efrat and another in Karnei Shomron only mean a few thousand people out of the 250 000 settlers.
Money makes the world go around,
in contrast though, there is no shortage of settlers who are living meager lives on barren hilltops and don’t care about foreign money.
michael,
do you love democarcy and civil rights or only when it’s convenient?
One basic human right, especially of criminals, is that once a person has stopped his actions, he cannot, and must not be hurt, in anyway.
If a kid threw a rock on a policeperson, he needs to be arrested and brought to trial, but if the rock is no longer in his hand, a hair of his can’t be touched. Likewise, a murderer caught in the act, cannot be harmed if the gun is no longer in his hand. Once said person raises his hands and surrenders, or merely stands around or lying on the ground, the game is over – police can’t do anything accept place handcuffs and escort to paddywagon.
The nightstick is supposed to be a defensive weapon used in order to defend, disarm or subdue a violent attacker who does not give up.
The mounted horseman is used only to stake territory out and distance protesters from a location not by using the horse as an offensive weapon (plowing directly into crowds, running over others) or the novelty whipping of protesters too.
The police broke the law last Wednesday. Don’t justify it, because nothing can justify it.
Next up, two things: First, I can assure you that the majority children were NOT sent by adults. You might not want to believe it, but virtually all of these kids went on their own, against the wishes of parents, teachers, and principals. The ‘adults’ actually didn’t want a situation, but the kids were sick of bending over and letting the disengagement happen the way it did.
Second, and last: If there were 3000 people at Amona last week, I can assure you that next time their will be double, if not more people. Olmert called a bluff, and wasted it. There won’t be any more disengagements from any hilltop. Him and his illegitimate government created a situation which marginalized a wider sector of society than those 30 Amona hilltop families.
Yeah well how come these places are always looking for funding, and not only that, but they come to the North American communities additionally to recruit new olim to there, which they are quite successful at, if you look at Efrat for example, or most of these WB places, there are large numbers of North Americans living there. In Efrat for example, an entire neighborhood is predominantly olim from NA.
It is stupid to support the lawbreakers no matter where you reside.
I heard that many of the injured, both police and settlers, were sent to the same hospital where Sharon is durring the violence in Amona. That almost seems funny. We all are stuck with each other it seems. I consider myself the real “armchair pundit” since I haven’t lived in Israel for some 15 years now. Although I work with lots of Israelis here, LA, over the years. Most of the Israelis here barely want to get into what is happening over there, no surprise….
However, I am getting the impression that things are changing really fast. That the old worldviews on left and right, settlers, charadi, religious zionist, kibutsnik, likudnik must be losing alot of thier meaning. I am getting the feeling that the old bias of the respective positions are likewise failing. That may be the point of a lot of what is happening it seems.
A) “us” is the Right wing (yeah, that’s me genius)
B) I’m not an “arm chair” pundit, you don’t know where I go or what I do for Eretz Yisrael. I was involved with politics and lobbying when you were still getting ready for your bar-mitzvah.
C) I was actually quoting CK in my first comment from sometime ago (not an exact quote, but close)
D) I never said I was at Amona, I clearly stated that I WATCHED the uncut video.
E) You don’t even know who I am or what I do, or how often I am actually in Eretz HaKodesh, or why I am remain in galus for that matter. The work I do in galus is anti-missionary related.
You attempt to judge me on what you perceive to be a fact in your mind… I judge Mobius by what he claims to be, and the actions he takes. (CK is actually one of the people who awoke me to Mobius being less than a Zionist, BTW)
Anyway, I didn’t come over here to argue with some guy named Michael, I came to give my opinion on something else altogether. Why are you picking a fight with me?
Yeah. Mobius gets sick when he thinks of Jews who actually love Eretz Yisrael. That’s why he lives here. Where do you live again, Tovya?
Could it be possible that you’re merely an armchair pundit living in the US vicariously living his fantasies through the settlers (I like how you refer to them as “us”), while at the same time denouncing those people who, unlike you, have actually put their money where their mouths are and picked up and moved here?
Dropping everything and moving here no matter what? That’s love. Sitting in front of the computer and pretending you were on the hilltop at Amona and that you’re persecuted by the sinister left of the country you don’t live in? That’s something else.
“Mo” doesn’t make any good points. He gets sick when he thinks of Jews who actually love Eretz Yisrael.
Watch the uncut version of the video… the rocks that were thrown were thrown after the police charged the protestors and started swinging their weapons at women and kids.
Secondly, there have been a ton of horror stories come out of this about police abuse. It must be investigated.
Olmert wanted Blood, not us… he wanted to show the Left and “middle” that he is tough on “settlers”.
I can’t even believe he had the chutzpah to call the right the Jewish Hamas. That’s a sick and twisted thing to say to, because there is no comparison despite what you may think about the settlements.
It seems like everywants to be in the show. Everybody suffers the delusion in
Judea and Samaria in one way or another. The truth is nobody in this world is
in control…..
Alot of Israel thinks about the “here and now” aspect of control.
The “here and now”
can become the
“then and gone”
fast and furious.
The IDF thinks they can control things (they can kick the settlers off their
land, but cant control women and children from comming back. Nor can the IDF
control the settlers from gathering and protesting elsewhere in the Country,)
The IDF is only doing a partial job of controlling anybody, Palestinian
hostility, Settler action and hostility….
The Settlers think they can stay in Judea and Samaria for awhile more and be
the good guys…. It doesn’t seem like Jewish Israel is convinced that the
Settlers are on the side of all that is good and great. I am not sure that
Settlers will ever succeed in that way.
The rest of Jewish Israel is divided….
Maybe most are delusioned by the “here and now” thinking that will become
“then and gone” at anytime and are playing with the idea of democratically
voting themselves out of existance. Didn’t Hamas just win democratically. We
all know what Hamas is saying.
Outside of Israel, Jews are at least as divided. The leaders of Israel are
whacked and don’t seem to have any ability to unite in any real time sense.
The Palestinians think they can continue to make trouble and get away with it
(they are at least as hopeless as anybody else and inherently unstable and
certainly to blame. I have also reason to think that the Palestinians are
suicidal from the top to the bottom and not capable of governing themselves.
The coptics and Armenians will hope everybody ill just fight themselves to death and not care….
And there are more characters… the Americans, Europeans, Arab world, The muslim world, the list goes on….
To survive in the great Judean and Samarian wilderness you need a cowboy like
mentality its seems. No matter what team you are on.
Anyone who knows what is going to happen is fooling themselves….
You can take sides, but we may all lose. You can focus in on little details to
get youre side broadcasted, only to see youre heros trashed liked everybody else.
That to me that is the bottom line.
What a mess…..
Who has any idea how to clean this up?
Michael,
Right on on all counts. But the eschatological lunatics needn’t care about the physical condition of the land, b/c Mashiach’s right around the corner. Mashiach comes with a big broom.
Ben-David — The CNN feed is just a feed, no commentary. I saw people attacking horses, which surprised me at first, but then I remembered a Shabbos dinner I had years ago with a “holy” man in Jerusalem. He kept chanting, over and over, “Arabs are horses, they only understand the stick.” So maybe the violent, land-worshipping, littering, democracy-hating, eschatological lunatics thought the horses were Palestinians.
er, ben david, I’m all for passive civil disobedience, but passive civil disobedience that was not. Let’s not be delusional now.
Laya: The kids in the houses were definitely passive…the videos show clearly the police going in, and starting to smash the heads of the kids sitting on the floor.
err, Ben-David, I’m all for passive civil disobedience, but passive civil disobedience that was not. Lets not be delusional now.
yeah, somehow i don’t think a crying bedouin would gain a lot of sympathy.
right, cause we all know bedoins are a the paragons of environmental virtue. An early pioneer though, now that might work. We can have spin off dolls and board games too…
Typical that mobi cites CNN – quoting the slanted commentary almost verbatim while ignoring what the pictures – and numerous other sources – really reveal.
No cinderblocks, mobi – all I see are waves of helmeted goons attacking unarmed teenagers. When the camera pans down to show the “poor” policemen being hit by falling sand, the camera shows soldiers stomping kid’s heads to the ground right nearby.
CNN also shows Effie Eitam with a nice clean face – before his head was cracked open.
And typical, too, that mobi quickly tries to divert attention from the main issues: Olmert shopped around looking for confrontation – first in Hebron and then in Amona – and used totally inappropriate police violence against citizens for political purposes.
A few websites with pictures and eyewitness accounts in English:
http://www.mentalblog.com/2006/02/batons-of-amona.html
http://muqata.blogspot.com/2006/02/amona-it-hurts-so-bad-updated.html
http://muqata.blogspot.com/2006/02/amona-revisited.html
http://benchorin.blogspot.com/2006/02/here-is-what-really-happened-in-amona.html
It’s simply not possible to square these images with reasonable police response to passive civil disobedience. That Olmert unleashed this rather than accept a peaceful solution says it all.
See, this is the kind of duplicitous bullshit that characterizes the Amona events and the in many ways the movement in general. You set up a bunch of teenage boys and girls to fight on the front lines and do some really evil shit, like chuck cinder blocks for example, in hopes that the police, who essentially have no other recourse, will respond with force. Then when they inevitably do, everyone cries “The police brutalize children throwing sticks and stones!” It’s an assault on the entire government of a state using children as warriors while the adults stay back and grandstand for the cameras. Brave.
And, of course, the perpetuation of the myth that Judea and Samaria, pre-government interference, was some sort of magical fantasy land of coexistence where Arabs and Jews lived happily together. The only sort of coexistence that happened is that apparently the settlers learning how to fight conflicts and attempt to twist the media in their favor from the Palestinian intifadaniks. Put radicalized children with weapons in front of the camera and let nature take its course.
The radical settlers’ insularity and violent disengagement from the government and people of Israel will bite them in the ass. One way or the other, no matter how many cinder blocks they throw at the heads of soldiers and policemen, they’re going to get dragged off the hilltops and out of the West Bank. And they’re going to find that their antics have not made them well-loved among the mainline Israelis whose religiosity, morality, way of life and beliefs they’ve been disparaging for years from atop the hills of Judea.
yeah, somehow i don’t think a crying bedouin would gain a lot of sympathy.
how ’bout sandy the desert owl: “em, you have to you care, eh put your trash over here!”
Yeah, whatever. I’m staying out of this one. Too bad you didn’t post it earlier, I’m already tired from explaining elsewhere why sticks and stones do not warrant wanton brutality on anything that moves. I also already no that beginning an argument with middle about this is pointless since he saw everything and will justify the police were in using this adequate force to deal with the immediate threat faced by teenage boys and girls.
And I was reminded that all of Judea and Shomron was a peaceful place when only settlers and arabs lived there with only one stinking Magav battalion patrolling until the army decided to reoccupy and harrass.
I also think that the far-left has more in common with the religious than they will admit.
the littering problem does indeed unite us across religious or political boundries.
Maybe it’s just cause Israel never had a large scale public education campaign like we did in America. Remeber the crying Indian?
Of course Israelis don’t give a shit about a cleanliness. But that doesn’t excuse the people who build their entire ideology around fetishization of physical land, who you’d think would be the most eco-friendly people imaginable, from trashing it. Which isn’t to say that secular Israelis have an excuse, but still. It’s worth noting.
And this isn’t about showing the world that disengagement is hard. It’s about a very real conflict between an increasingly radical, dangerous and messianic ideology and a government concerned with the here-and-now, non-eschatological security concerns of a country. This shit is not just for the TV cameras.
OK about the trash? Have you noticed it’s all clean now? Both Mobius and Michael are recent Jerusalemites – however if you check out downtown Jerusalem after say Chotzot Hair, the summer city festival, the trash is as bad if not worst. In that respect the settlers have as much in common with their fellow secular citizens – Israelis simply don’t give a shit about cleanliness. Kudos to the city however – it never fails to amaze me how clean they get it by the very next morning.
Now with respect to Amona – I dunno. I saw settlers and soldiers cooperating in the evacuation of the wounded, you don’t see that happening with the Palestinians. Everything about Amona had the tinge of drama, as if everyone involved was participating in some kind of theatre meant to be broadcast to the world. It was as if both sides actually got together to let the world know that giving up land is not going to be so easy. Frankly I think that’s a good thing. I for one am very eager to have as much space between me and those Hamas nutbars as possible.
Mo makes a good point – I noticed the same thing and thought the same thing. But then again, I guess it’s okay to trash Jerusalem, because that’s where the rasha government and the Arabs and some of those dirty seculars are.
In any case, I’m not sure you can have a protest rally when the police respond with force to people throwing fucking cinder blocks. And the settlers say the police are a chillul Hashem? I don’t understand this mentality where you think you can use brutal excessive force and expect to be treated with the utmost care and respect in return. Of course the police reaction was exactly what the religious right wanted. Why do you think all three rightist MKs that were there out of thousands of people managed to get themselves injured? Why do you think everybody on the front lines was a kid? Now they have vindication and a rallying point.
It reminds me of someone…oh yeah. The Palestinians.
i saw the arutz sheva video; and i also saw the cnn video which showed, before the cops went into the house, that the kids were throwing rocks and bottles at the cops, and dumping sand on them from the roof above.
what i find most telling is the fact that ben yehuda was completely and totally covered in trash, from kikar tziyyon to ben hillel street after the event. the entire midrachov was covered in filth. you claim to love the land so much as to not give up one an inch, but you do not love the land enough that you treat it with respect. you can’t even put paper in wastebin. so what makes you think you’re entitled to eretz yisrael? instead of blockading 9 caravans you should be blockading the offices of israel’s worst pollutors so that they can’t go in to work. but you don’t actually care about the land of israel. you just care about not sharing it with goyim.
Hey Shmuel – I was just quoting from the Jerusalem Post – there was no hidden ideological commentary. The violence all around was awful and I am kind of curious why, after over 350 injuries, Olmert does not want to have an independent inquiry. I mean it doesn’t matter where you sit ideologically, but is this the way it’s going to be from now on? Is this business as usual? Geez I hope not …
Hi the themiddle,
May I ask what you mean by,
Let’s admit they wanted this outcome
Yup, and what the settlers and the settler movement did was inexcusable. Let’s admit they wanted this outcome.
Why did you but brutal police violence in quotes? Did you SEE the Arutz Sheva video of unarmed folks sitting down getting beaten?
If I lived in J’lem, best believe I’d be at this protest. Not because I believe in the settler ideology, but because what those policemen did was inexcusable!
Wrong thread! I tried to post my comment on the Cafepress one. Please delete or correct. Muchas toda.
I was there, man. Jerusalem, ’06, Yafo and King George, man…I hear the screams in my sleep…
“Olmert Ra La-Yehudim…Olmert Ra La-Yehudim”…women and children, man…you don’t know, man, you weren’t there.