Jewish Settlers to Christians in Hebron: "We killed Jesus, and we'll kill you too"

I have first hand experience with the fundamentalism of Jewish settlers and fascists who are totally shielded from international media attention for fear of anti-semitism labels maligning the media agency. Luckily, independent solidarity organizations like ISM and other groups of volunteers come to the Holy Land to witness the hideous hatred of the Judaiofascists and lend their presence to protect Palestinians and the little of Christ's legacy that remains in this hijacked "Jewish State." The article below is from IMEMC which is a key news source to otherwise unreported events in the Holy Land. The disturbing photo on the right is of a Swedish volunteer who sustained a fractured cheek and lacerations by Jewish terrorists occupying Palestinian lands.

Settlers to Christians in Hebron: "We killed Jesus, and we'll kill you too" [source: IMEMC]

For most of Palestine, the obstacles and hardships we witnessed and
encountered in doing these activities with our local hosts highlight the
inhumanity of the situation and the day-to-day humiliation of living under a
military occupation where, at its most benign, the native population, daily,
must submit to the authority of heavily armed teenagers to access their own
villages, towns, farmlands, etc. Here in the West Bank, the native
population can rarely travel throughout their own territory without
procuring permits from their conquerors. I and three Swedish colleagues
have spent the last three days with olive farmers in a small village near
Tulkarem--this was the slice of life i intended to write about, but today's
events have forced me to change my story and show some of the sheer
brutality of the occupation. I just got back from a hospital in Jerusalem,
where one of my Swedish colleagues lies with her left cheekbone broken and
here eye swollen shut.

This morning, I and several friends headed down to a small village near
Hebron to support Palestinian farmers who, because of violence from Jewish
settlers from the Havat Ma'on settlement, had not been able to plough their
nearby fields. The settlers routinely engage in violence against the
villagers, whether it's the area children walking to and from school,
attacking the farmers, or poisoning the fields where their livestock
graze. You see, the Tuwani land is located in three areas: the Tuwani
hillside, the valleys between Tuwani and Havat Ma'on, and the Havat Ma'on
hillside. The closer the villagers move to the settlement outpost, the
angrier the settlers get, and the more likely they are to attack. In
addition, the Israeli authorities have strongly discouraged the villagers
from accessing their fields, save for the land on the Tuwani hillside.

On this day, armed with a recent court decision guaranteeing the villagers
the right to work their land and in the presence of Israeli international
human rights workers, the Tuwani farmers attempted to till as much of their
land as possible. The joint Israeli-international accompaniment hoped to
discourage settler attacks, and the ploughing was done all at once so that
the effort of the farmers would simply be too much for the settlers to
sabotage.

My watch started out easy enough--i and three Israelis sat atop a hillside
as a local farmer and his son sowed seed for about a half hour before we saw
a police jeep arrive at the top of an adjacent hillside. Moments later, just
as the farmer began to plough, five settlers then another with dogs came
down the mountain toward the farmer. Two Israelies backed away to take
pictures as I and the third Israeli stood between the settlers and the
tractor. As they approached I said, "shalom." I wanted to make sure that
they knew we meant them no harm, but these folks aren't the least bit
worried about that. Just shy of bumping into us, a few settlers sat down at
our feet to block the tractor; i attempted to convince them to turn around,
to which the settlers replied with curses in Hebrew, so i replied with one
of the only two words I know, *shalom, *to which one answered,

"No peace for you! Thieves! You're thiefs!" said one of the men. Again, i
attempted to clearly communicate our intentions by saying, "i only wish
peace for you," to which he replied "I ONLY WISH DEATH FOR YOU." This
stalemate continued until, after fifteen minutes, Israeli military jeeps and
more police jeeps arrived. Eventually, the soldiers and police casually made
their way towards us and, after a few conversations, convinced the settlers
to return to leave the area. As part of the negotiation, I and my three
colleagues relocated to the top of the hill, next to the police/military
presence, to observe as a Palestinian farmer made the most of this
opportunity which should be his everyday right.

As we watched this man plough his fields, several Swedish and English
friends accompanied other farmers to their fields, where they also had
similar encounters with settlers. As was the case in our group, settlers
approached the farmer from a hillside, and, just as the farmer was preparing
to plough, an English human rights worker grabbed the settlers arm as he
swung his fist towards the Paletsinian farmer. This man then turned to the
englishman and attacked him with a walkie-talkie. Then, as the Israeli
military and police arrived, the attacking setter dove laid down on the
ground next to the stationary tractor to behave as though he'd just been run
over. More settlers arrived, more military arrived, and then an ambulance
arrived (in fact, the medic attacked the same englishman). There was a whole
lot of accusations and arguments despite how totally absurd the situation
was--that a man who had supposedly been run over by a tractor would keep
sitting up and arguing with police and military? This man argued with the
very same police and military who not only had just witnessed his attack on
several human rights workers but had to have seen him lay down next to the
tractor. Eventually the attacker was carried off on a stretcher, and the
farmer got back to work.

Similar things occurred with this action, but the collective efforts of the
farmers and their supporters was too much for the settlers to disrupt or
sabotage. As a result of the efforts of the at Tuwani farmers, with a bit of
support from Israeli and international human rights workers, and with a bit
of enforcement on the part of the Israeli military and the Israeli police,
the Tuwani farmers were able to plough all of the land on their side of the
hill, all of the land in the valleys, and most of their land on the Havat
Ma'on side of the hill.

After the Tuwani action, several human rights workers went to Hebron to be a
nonviolent presence in the midst of a potentially violent Sabbath
celebration. In Hebron, the Sabbath is often an occasion for Jewish settlers
to rampage through the streets and attack the Palestinians, damage their
homes and their shops, and generally scare the hell out of them; this is
often doing so with a military escort (the Israeli military's job is to
protect the settlers). Today, however, was an extra special day, as it was
estimated that more than twenty thousand settlers from all over Israel,
Europe and the United States descended upon the city of Hebron to
commemorate the death and burial of Abram's wife, Sarah. However, as is
typical, prayers are not the only activities that the Sabbath brings to
Hebron, and this occasion was much larger than the ordinary.

Immediate inside the Tel Rumeida checkpoint stood a crowd of roughly 100
settlers; within moments of passing through this checkpoint, several human
rights workers were confronted by a group of settlers who demanded, "why are
you here?! where do you come from?!" To which one replied "we're here o
visit a friend." Immediately the crowd of settlers started chanting "JESUS
WAS GAY!" in Hebrew and English, and then someone from the back of the crowd
yelled, "THEY LOVE THE PALESTINIANS!" As the crowd began to spit on and kick
the the human rights workers, The chants continued and then changed to, in
Hebrew, "WE KILLED JESUS AND WE'LL KILL YOU, TOO!" All the while more
settlers arrived and joined in the chanting.

The whole time this was happening, where were the police? RIGHT THERE
CASUALLY WATCHING ALL THIS. The police did not even move until AFTER a
settler bashed a bottle across the face of human rights worker Touve
Johansson, a 19-year-old Swedish woman. As the crowd around them cheered,
Touve fell to the street with a lacerated face and a broken cheekbone. As
Touve's friends tended held her head and wiped away blood--In fact, as the
soldiers stood by--settlers took turns crouching down and giving "thumbs up"
by the bloodied woman's face. After the first medic, also a settler, arrived
on the scene with his medical supplies and refused to treat Ms. Johansson,
an Israeli military medic arrived, and she was eventually taken to a
hospital in Jerusalem. Three of the assailants were detained (but not
arrested) and released moments later (also to cheers by crowds of settlers);
moreso, the Israeli police did not take the detainees' names, but they did
threaten Touve Johansson's companions with arrest.

What happened to Touve and her group was definitely above the typical level
of violence and hostility shown towards international human rights workers,
and, as is the case with something violent and out of the ordinary, the
story has generated a lot of interest. Case in point--I just returned from
the hospital, where I received several phone calls from journalists who
wished to interview Touve.

People will take exception and pay attention because some of the
circumstances--especially the hospitalization of a European human rights
worker--are exceptional. There will be more media attention over the next
few days, but the real story is not in the out-of-the-ordinary events but in
the everyday events. This occupation is not about the Israeli peace movement
or the international human rights workers. There is a larger context to
consider and a very necessary question to ask: had this happened to a
Palestinian, would there be the same amount of interest? Would my phone
still be ringing?

As I mentioned before, many of these settlers came to Hebron from all over
Israel, Europe and the United States. They came not only to celebrate *
Genesis* Chapter 23 but also to terrorize the natives and assert Jewish
dominance over this predominantly non-Jewish city. On this day an
international was hospitalized. This specific occasion may have been
special, but * c*onsider this very simple fact: if you're a Palestinian, and
if you live in Hebron, this story is not exceptional, for these settlers are
your neighbors; they can do anything they want, and you can do nothing about
it.