What should an Israeli citizen do when the police and army don’t arrive for hours after being notified that settlers are attempting to enter Palestinian homes, scaring young children, cutting protective fences, sending their flocks and donkeys to eat a family’s fodder, and physically attacking Israeli human rights defenders who are nonviolently protecting with their bodies?
In Taiba, settlers invade twice a day, although the army has told them grazing between the homes is forbidden and only sometimes expels them.
Was I wrong to pull away the donkey settlers tied to the Palestinian bales while stealing my wallet and phone?
The police investigator claimed that it was illegal. I reminded her of Israel’s “Do not stand idly by while your fellow bleeds” law named after the biblical commandment.
“Should I have just stood there and allowed the settler sheep and donkeys to steal fodder?” I asked. The expression on her face said yes.
Many who see the conflict as a zero-sum game unequivocally support settler takeover of Palestinian lands and therefore view our attempts to stop settler violence as “harassing Jewish shepherds” will agree. Is this who we are?
The automatic 15-day restraining order from Taiba was the condition for release. Sometimes the police admit they decided before interrogating me.
As usual, upon receiving an unfair condition preventing me from fulfilling my human and Jewish responsibility to defend fellow human beings created in God’s Image, I chose a night in jail to be arraigned the next day and requested that the ban be canceled. Judges usually cancel or significantly reduce unwarranted conditions.
The judge greatly reduced the restraining order, although the remaining ban still supported continued oppression. He also said, “I don’t think that a citizen is supposed to put matters in order. The police must put matters in order.”
I wanted to ask him what a citizen IS supposed to do when forces don’t put matters in order, and theft is taking place in front of his eyes. One rabbinical interpretation of “Where nobody is acting like a mensch, try to be one” (Pirkei Avot) is that the average citizen must act when officials are not fulfilling their duty.
The jail’s social worker told me that all Palestinians should be transferred, as should we. If a Palestinian commits terrorism, his village should be destroyed: “Jewish survival justifies collective punishment.”
I told the social worker that even if he doesn’t care about non-Jews, hate engendered by oppression endangers Jewish survival. It drives masses into the arms of those Palestinians who will seek to destroy us even if there will be a just peace.
I reminded him of the Haaretz report in which Central Command Commander Avi Bluth warned that settler violence is likely to trigger Palestinian violence. (But he was proud of his support for 150 outposts, many if not all home to settlers employing violence or the threat of violence to expel Palestinians.)
The social worker scorned Bluth, as well as our sages who taught “The sword comes into the world because of justice delayed, justice denied, and the improper teaching of Torah” (Pirkei Avot).
Police and the army need to arrest the settlers
In Torat Tzedek’s High Court appeal to allow Wadi As Seeq residents to return home, the judges refused to believe that the police cannot be relied upon to protect Palestinians if they return alone, even though the outpost that expelled them at gunpoint along with settler soldiers is still standing.
The state only promises army accompaniment for the first hours of the return and to “consider” not demolishing homes destroyed by settlers rebuilt without permits. The army has closed the area to Israelis but refuses to exempt human rights defenders. Residents told the court they won’t return without this minimum protection. The court hasn’t intervened.
In Mukhmas, Duma, and Taiba, the army declared year-long closures that would be positive, as would be the Wadi As Seeq order, if properly enforced. However, in all of these cases, soldiers told us that settlers had been granted exemptions.
The orders have been enforced against those protecting residents, not those attacking. Palestinians consequently abandoned some neighborhoods. They had remained in their homes despite constant violence, but said they could not remain once we couldn’t be present. In Duma, the order has just been canceled, after threatened court action.
In Mukhmas, the outpost from which settlers descended to burn Palestinian homes, injure Torat Tzedek volunteers, burn cars, and break my car windows is within the closed zone. The Jaba outpost as well.
I constantly send the army pictures of the settlers in the closed areas. The army occasionally evacuates the Mukhmas outpost, but they could arrest settlers daily who don’t obey the closure.
They could destroy the illegal access road.
In Taiba, most settlers who harass and steal come with flocks from a new outpost inside the subsequently closed area. They traverse additional closed territories to get to the homes they attack daily.
The police promised the court they would turn back on the water at the station now controlled by settlers. They did, but it was shut off again after the police left. An officer told me they were only obligated to turn the water on once.
Families lack water.
In court, arch settler Neriya Ben-Pazi said he had a contract renting the area for grazing. Government maps make that hard to believe. Palestinians say they have deeds. If so, I hope the courts will honor them, but I am not sure they will.
Protection as a problem
Back to my night in jail, the intake officer asked about my leadership of a band of anarchists. I asked where he received this false information. He said it was in the police report.
After my police interrogation, there was discussion between two investigators about attaching a secret report to my file. Saying that in front of me, I didn’t know if they were serious. Maybe they were.
In the lobby of the police station, there is a recruitment flyer stating, “Join the Binyamin police station. We defend settlements and strengthen governance.” One officer joked about a settler video of me using my shirt to shoo away sheep from the fodder. Some officers enjoy watching settler videos of us protecting Palestinians without police assistance, but don’t feel obligated to do their job.
The police once had some understanding that their mandate was to defend all populations, not just settlements. Some Binyamin police officers try to enforce the law to protect all, but the culture of the station is to do the utmost not to take actions curbing settler violence. “Governance” is also a positive concept that has become code for controlling Palestinians on both sides of the 1967 border.
Once a police officer told the court, “Every time Ascherman enters Judea and Samaria it is to create a provocation.”
A former commander of the Binyamin police station told me that everything would be quiet without us. It would be deathly quiet because many of the Palestinians still in their homes tell us that they could not remain if we were not present.
Despite condemnations from those responsible for stopping the violence, security forces, the state, and our courts either actively support settler violence to expel Palestinians, or allow it. Our non-violent presence protecting fellow human beings is therefore a problem to be limited as much as possible.
What should a citizen of conscience do when a crime is being committed in front of his eyes, and the police and army don’t come? What should the Jewish people and all people of conscience be doing in light of this betrayal of our highest Jewish values?
If one percent of those saying they oppose settler violence would join us on the ground to stop it or lobby, we would be much more effective than we are now.
The writer is the executive director of Torat Tzedek-Torah of Justice.