Stealing what was done to the Jew to malign the Jew

We have got used to the word, Holocaust being misapplied to events that are very different in nature and scale than the Holocaust. We are seeing the word, Zio-Nazi, used to label Israelis. Now the word, pogrom, originally used in Russia to label murderous attacks against Jews, is being used to label violence the Palestinian Arabs claim was started by a group of Jewish settlers from Avigayil in Judea & Samaria, a community on a hill overlooking the illegal outpost, al-Mufaqara, in which it is said that 12 Palestinians were injured, one 3-year-old boy in moderate condition after being hit in the head with a rock, apparently as he lay sleeping in his bed. In that same incident, there were ten Jewish injuries, three of whom are reportedly in serious condition. Of course, injuries to the alleged attacker does not mean they did not attack. The word, pogrom, is not all that was stolen from what has been done to the Jews.

The Accusation

All reports in the news and social media talk about the horrific acts committed by a group of settlers on Tuesday, 28 September. Most reports correctly include the detail that the events took place on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. But then none of them relate to that fact at all. Why that is important will become clear soon. Here is a video uploaded by B'Tselem that supposedly documents a part of the attack. A voice-over on this version is a radio interview on Israeli radio Reshet B with Nasser Nawaj'ah, a field researcher with B'Tselem. B'Tselem is a leftwing non-profit organization that seeks to end the Israeli occupation by means of "documenting Israeli violations of Palestinians’ human rights in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip." Toward that end, they hand out cameras to Arabs in Judea & Samaria as part of their camera project, to tape Jews supposedly committing offences against the Palestinian Arabs. Here is the video they used to represent the violent Simchat Torah event. Before I relate to it, please view the video and think about what you see here. There is no date on the videoclip, nor are we told exactly where it was taken. We also do not know exactly who these people are. I suggest that they are not the settlers being accused of the violence and that this video may not even have been taken on 28 September. Why do I think that? Because they men are half-naked and even if religiously observant Jews would have removed their shirts to cover their faces, they would have on an undershirt and tsitsit (ritual tassels that we see on religious Jews hanging below their shirts).A religious Jew would not go outside his home with his chest bare. Therefore, these are either Arabs or secular Jews in a different event. I do think I see a kaffiyeh on one or two of the stone-throwers. What does that mean? In the video version without the voice-over interview (also on the B'Tselem Facebook page), we hear both Hebrew and English but it soon becomes clear that there are also Israeli soldiers on location.The soldiers tell the people to move away, but aside from the rocks thrown by the Arabs, there is no other violence. It is unclear how this video is supposed to represent a supposedly horrific "pogrom". Let me translate part of the radio interview for you. The interviewer asks Nawaj'ah to tell her what happened the day before since he says he was there. We are told that Nawaj'ah lives in Sussiya, another illegal outpost about an 8-minute drive from the village in question, al-Mufaqara. The interviewer did not ask how he knew to come to the site. I would imagine that if a pogrom was going on, the victims would use their cellphones to call for backup and that hundreds of neighbouring Arabs would descend upon the place and not one person with a camera. Nawaj'ah begins his recitation by stating that for the past few months there are daily attacks on Palestinian Arabs by Israeli settlers. This particular incident began, according to him, when settlers from Avigayil came down from their settlement and attacked a solitary shepherd with his sheep. The motivation, he claimed, is that they came to steal sheep for the farm they recently established in the settlement. So this is the second thing stolen from what happens to Jews, not just in Judea & Samaria, but also in the Negev and the Galilee: Bedouin are known to steal animals and farm equipment from Jewish farms if left unattended even for a short time and in some cases, the farmer has been beaten (see also here). At least he did not accuse the Jews of slaughtering three or four sheep as can be found in other media reports. Nawaj'ah continues, saying that dozens of Jews came from both Avigayil and neighbouring Havat Maon and broke into houses, destroying things inside, breaking solar heaters and water containers. They broke car windows and turned cars over. He claimed that the Arabs did not go looking for trouble. The Jews attacked them in their village. Like the terrorist who entered 13-year-old Hallel Ariel's bedroom and murdered her in her bed as she slept, for example, or the terrorist who murdered five members of a family in their home on Kibbutz Metzer? And there were more such incidents. So are the Palestinian Arabs stealing Jewish victim circumstances and claiming such as their own as well? I can only hope that had the radio interviewer seen the video B'Tselem used to illustrate their accusations, she would have asked if Nawaj'ah is sure that those stone-throwers were really Jews. But where is the video evidence of the serious accusations? Given the severity of the allegations, I would expect that a video would be available showing the Jews actually throwing rocks at cars, solar heaters, home windows, etc., and wielding the sticks he claims they were. I would have expected that he would have shown frightened women and children cowering in corners in their homes or running away to the surrounding fields. Instead we get a few stills of dead sheep and a turned-over car, another with a broken front window. Those could have happened under a number of circumstances. I am not saying that I am 100% sure the settlers did none of this. I am saying that the media are too quick to accept the accusations as if a court has already found them guilty as charged. In fact, two of the five Jews arrested were released on Friday and Judge Havi Toker expressed dismay as it appeared the police arrested them based on their appearance only.

A Question Nobody Asked

In a conversation with Ari Kaniel, CEO of the NGO Ayin L'Zion, he expressed dismay that nobody thought to ask if such acts as attributed to the Jews are even possible given that they were supposed to have taken place on a Jewish holiday. Observant Jews are forbidden from carrying anything in their hands outside the bounds of their residences. If there is an "eruv" (fence or walls enclosing an area that includes their homes and other buildings) then they can carry items within that enclosed space. That would definitely not extend to the fields outside the settlement. Therefore, it makes no sense to accuse them of trying to steal sheep, that would most likely have to be carried, on a holiday. It makes no sense to suggest that they came armed with rocks and sticks on a holiday. The only situation in which they would be permitted to use rocks or sticks would be in self-defence, not as an act of unprovoked offence. Therefore, it makes no sense to accuse them of damaging property on the holiday as that would also be a violation of Jewish law unless the rock was aimed at someone aiming rocks at them.