Jewish settlers shot to death two Palestinians in the West Bank on Monday, one of them a teen-age girl, and the army reported there was widespread vandalism and arson by the settlers in the village. They reportedly burned down one house and damaged vehicles and shops.
The settlers later claimed that the shooting was legal and justifiable self-defense.
The Israel Defense Force and police have opened investigations, and Police Minister Haim Bar-Lev promised that the persons responsible will be brought to justice. Some reports say 30 settlers were arrested in connection with the killing.
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin warned Tuesday that settlers who go on punitive raids using weapons issued them by the IDF would be brought to trial.
Two of the settlers readily acknowledged their role in the shootings, in a Voice of Israel television interview Tuesday.
The incidents seemed to corroborate growing fears that militant Jewish settlers have decided to deal with the 17-month-old Palestinian uprising on their own, taking increasingly provocative and aggressive measures toward Arabs.
Even more troubling to the authorities are the numerous confrontations between settlers and IDF personnel attempting to restrain them.
One of the shootings took place in Kifel Harit, an Arab village near the Jewish settlement of Ariel. Ibtissam Buziyye, 16, was fatally shot by settlers and two other villagers were wounded.
The immediate reaction of the IDF was to clamp a curfew on Kifel Harit to prevent the villagers from reacting.
The second fatal incident occurred in Sinjil village near Nablus where an Arab tractor driver was shot to death.
Settlers, who said they were passing through Sinjil on a hiking trip, claimed they fired into the air to frighten off stone-throwers.
Military sources expressed strong suspicions that the shooting in Sinjil was planned in advance in reaction to the stoning of settlers there.
WILD RAMPAGE
According to the IDF, the settlers rampaged through the village and fled in a car whose license number was recorded.
The hikers claimed they were being “lynched,” and denied allegations that their attack was pre-planned.
The two who appeared on television identified themselves as Gad Ben-Zimra and Yehoshua Shapiro, students at the Tomb of Joseph Yeshiva in Nablus.
They said they visited the village to pray at the graves of the biblical warrior Joshua and his aide, Caleb Ben Yephunneh.
They said they had done this often without incident, but on Monday, they were surrounded by villagers who attacked them with stones.
“As we reached the outskirts of the village, some 20 meters away from the first house, we realized that we were encircled. Under the circumstances we were in, the law allows us to shoot in order to hit,” Shapiro said.
The hikers were praised by Daniella Weiss, an official of the militant Gush Emunim settlers movement, which holds that the West Bank belongs to the Jews by divine right.
She told Voice of Israel that Jews should be encouraged to wander freely all over the land without fear of being stoned. When they react to Arab attacks they should be praised rather than criticized, she maintained.
According to Weiss, if Arabs are killed by settlers, it is their own fault.
The Gush Emunim secretariat, of which Weiss is a member, convened in special session Sunday. It decided that the so-called “hikes” to nearby Arab villages would continue, without notifying the military authorities in advance.
They indicated that if attacked, they would shoot to kill. They repeated their criticism of the government for allegedly “neglecting security.”
The Gush Emunim, though a minority among the Jews who have settled in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, have powerful political support from some ultra-Orthodox and ultra-nationalist rightwing parties.
MORE SYMPATHY FOR SETTLERS
Moreover, general public opinion has become more sympathetic to them since the Palestinian uprising began.
But the harassment and verbal abuse of soldiers by the settlers is another matter.
Complaints against their conduct were voiced in the Cabinet on Sunday and in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee.
Rabin declared he would tolerate no attacks on soldiers by Israeli civilians and anyone caught attacking a soldier or officer would be detained.
Apparently sensing determination on the part of the military, the settlers backed off. Their leadership issued statements in the past few days reprimanding anyone who lifted a hand against soldiers.
But Jewish relations with Arabs are deteriorating. In the Israeli city of Petach Tikva and in Ariel in the West Bank, both of which employ large numbers of Arab day laborers from the territories, the authorities have taken measures to restrict their movement around town.
The Petach Tikva municipality is building a camp where the Arab workers would be required to assemble to be picked up by their Jewish employers.
The idea is “to prevent them from roaming in town,” a city official said.
Haim Haberfeld, head of Histadrut’s trades unions department, sharply criticized the measure, saying it amounted to a violation of human rights.
In Ariel, the local authorities decided to force Arab construction workers to wear special identity tags imprinted with the words “Alien Worker.”
Ariel Mayor Ron Nahman indignantly rejected comparisons with the yellow Star of David patches Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
