Avidan Ofer is in Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital recovering from head and face wounds at the hands of Arab attackers, but a widely-quoted Palestinian Authority media agency has reported that Ofer and several other Jews were the attackers and Arabs were the victims in Monday’s terrorist attack between Kiryat Arba-Hebron and Arad-Be’er Sheba.
Ofer told The Jewish Press the Jews that he and other farmers from Mitzpeh Yair, were plowing their fields when 10 Arabs chased after them and beat them with rods and sticks. The land was clearly part of Mitzpeh Yair. I know that for a fact because it is located two miles from my house in Beit Yatir.
He said he could identify the assailants, who are from an illegally built village a mile to the south and which has grown thanks to assistance from foreign leftists and the European Union.
The IDF confirmed there was a fight” between “settlers and Arabs” and that one Arab and three Jews were “lightly injured.” One of those suffering from light injuries is also in Hadassah Hospital with a set of broken teeth and wounds to his jaw, after having been beaten by the attackers until soldiers responded to a distress call.
A military spokeswoman told The Jewish Press that police arrested seven Jews and two Arabs but could not comment on who initiated the attack. However, since the Jewish farmers were farming their land, the answer is clear.
Why didn’t the Jews defend themselves? After all, they had guns.
The answer is disturbingly simple. Any Jew who shoots a bullet, even in the air, is going to be arrested by the friendly Israeli police, and his weapon will be taken away from him. The Jews use their guns only when they are on the verge of having to say “Shema Yisrael,” the first words of the prayer said before someone dies. That is the extent of Jewish self-defense in most of Judea and Samaria.
The IDF “protects” Jews by tearing up their farms and blindly accepting Arab claims that the land is theirs, and the police dutifully record Jews’ complaints and often end up arrest them after an Arab files a complaint. Arabs almost never are arrested in “routine” assaults and stealing.
The IDF is very aggressive when it comes to talking about protecting Gaza Belt residents from Kassam rockets, even if their actions don’t match their words. When it comes to “settlements,” the military plays down almost every incident except clear murders.
It is a lot easier to pretend there is no trouble with the Arabs. No extra work. Peace and quiet.
So the IDF confirmed their was a “fight.” The government does not want to ruin U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to convince himself that Mahmoud Abbas really wants Jews to stay alive and in peace.
One of the debilitating factors in the efforts of Jews to hold on to any inch of land they can in the southern Hebron Hills is the Palestinian Authority propaganda machine and the silent guns of the Israeli government media folks.
Here is how the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency reported Monday morning’s attack, under the headline “Palestinian farmers clash with settlers in south Hebron hills.”
The report stated, “The clashes occurred after settlers attacked a group of farmers tending their land. Ismail al-Adra said that ten settlers attacked him and several other farmers while they were on their way to tend their fields…. Another farmer, Mousa al-Adra, was also attacked and injured, together with a foreign solidarity activist who was filming the settler attack….Israeli forces arrived at the scene and detained a number of farmers, accusing them of attacking settlers….
“There are several radical Jewish outposts in the south Hebron hills, with settlers regularly attacking local Palestinians with impunity.”
This conflicting report is obviously a lie, even to those who have not taken Journalism 101.
In every Palestinian Authority report of alleged Jewish attacks, some of them true and many of them questionable, the location is noted. Bethlehem-based Ma’an apparently decided not to define the area because it would open it to counter-claims of a confirmed lie. If, as the article states, Jews attacked the Arabs who were “tending their land,” where was that land? The answer is clear. “Their” land was in Mitzpeh Yair, just like all of the land in Judea and Samaria is “their” land.