ECAJ joins in slamming violent settlers
On August 14, dozens of Israeli citizens, some masked, set fire to vehicles and buildings and threw rocks and Molotov cocktails in the town of Jit in Samaria.
The Palestinian village of Jit on a hill overlooking Kedumim in Samaria on Feb. 9, 2015. Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images.
The Israel Defence Forces and Israeli Border Police rushed to the village “within minutes of receiving the report, used means to disperse demonstrations and shot into the air and removed the Israeli citizens from the village,” the IDF stated, in Hebrew.
Security forces arrested an Israeli citizen and turned him over to the Israeli police, according to the IDF, which said it is investigating the report that a Palestinian was killed during the incident.
“Following the serious incident, a joint investigation was opened by the IDF, the Shin Bet and the Israel Police,” the Israeli army added in Hebrew. “The IDF condemns events of this type and the rioters, who harm security, law and order, and divert the IDF and the security forces from their main mission of thwarting terrorism and protecting the security of the residents.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stated that he “views with utmost severity the disturbances that took place, this evening in Jit, which included attacks on people and property by Israelis who entered the village.”“It is the IDF and the security forces that fight terrorism, and nobody else,” he said. “Those responsible for any offence will be apprehended and tried.”
President Isaac Herzog condemned the attack and said: “This is an extreme minority that harms the law-abiding settler population and the settlement as a whole and the name and position of Israel in the world during a particularly sensitive and difficult period.”
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant wrote that “at a time when our troops are fighting on the frontlines, defending the State of Israel, a group of radical individuals have launched a riot, and attacked innocent people.”
“I am appalled by yesterday’s violent attack by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank,” Jack Lew, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, wrote on Friday.
The American Jewish Committee condemned “strongly” the “actions of the extremist Israeli settlers who violently attacked the Palestinian village of Jit in the West Bank, killing one person, injuring others and burning cars and houses.”
“Their actions, which have been condemned by numerous Israeli officials, including the prime minister and president, contradict Jewish and Israeli values. Security forces must swiftly act to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators,” the AJC said. “Our thoughts are with the victims and families of this senseless violence.”
Now the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Councillors have unanimously passed the following motion:
The ECAJ joins with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and senior leaders of the Israeli government in condemning the recent lawless and provocative behaviour by elements of the settler movement in physically attacking Palestinians in the West Bank and destroying their property.
Such conduct is criminal under Israeli law and is completely antithetical to Jewish values and the values upon which the State of Israel was founded.
We also express our concern and dismay at the inflammatory statements expressed by extremist political and other elements in Israel relating to the population of Gaza as a whole, which has contributed to the violence.
We call upon the government of Israel, for the sake of justice and in the interests of Israel and the Jewish people, to do all within its power to apprehend the perpetrators and deal with them according to law.”
Naomi Be, the settlers referred to are actually a group distinct from most of the Jews who live in Judea/Samaria. They are extremist and ultra-orthodox in belief to the point of living in a deluded cocoon of strict religious rulings that defy the necessary realities of living in a society where each person matters.
Being in the Diaspora does not preclude knowledge of Israel in real terms. A high percentage of Jews in the Diaspora have travelled frequently to Israel and/or lived there. I, myself, am a dual Australian/Israeli citizen. To be Jewish and living in the ancient capital territory of Kings Solomon and David does not infer rights to violent behaviour, and it should be condemned, the culprits dealt with through the law as any perpetrator of violence is.
Seems like all some jews living outside of Israel can do is condemn actions of the actual inhabitants defending themselves and in the process protecting our homeland. To call jews living in Judea and Samaria, the ancient capital territory of Kings Salomon and David, ‘settlers’ is an insult to any jew.
It is easy to point fingers and moans and groan about what a key warrior would do, how about packing your bags and actually doing something real?