ABBAS VERSUS FACTS: JEWS 'WEREN'T ATTACKED' IN KUSRA
by Dalit Halevi, Ari Yashar
Despite clear video evidence to the contrary, PA chair claims 'cultured' Kusra residents 'didn't hit' beaten and abducted Jews.
Background:[1]
"The destruction of vineyards in the Binyamin region of Samaria sparked a confrontation Tuesday, in which an Arab mob abducted and violently beat 30 Jewish residents, leaving several of them injured.
"MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beytenu) criticized Defense Secretary Moshe Ya'alon for ordering the destruction of the vineyards which riled up both sides. 'Border police raided many large vineyards in the Shiloh valley this morning, using the wretched instrument termed Disruptive Use Order,' reported Feiglin to the Knesset, referring to orders allowing the IDF to seize Jewish land despite no Arab claims to it. The Levy Report found the orders to be illegal and draconian, recommending their discontinuation.
The police 'uprooted the seedlings, seedlings of Jewish residents in the heart of the land of Israel, that are not planted on anyone's private property,' noted Feiglin.
One of the ambushed Jewish men told Arutz Sheva that they were ambushed and blocked in by trucks while walking between Esh Kodesh and Givat Hayovel. "The Arabs gathered us into one place, tied our hands and legs, and beat us cruelly," reports the man, noting that he passed out from the abuse. After the IDF arrived and convinced the PA Arabs to release their captives, the man relates that an officer justified the attack, telling him "you came to do a 'price tag' and now you're going to get it."
Jews living in Judea and Samaria have widely been blamed for "price tag" attacks - nationalistically-motivated vandalism targeting Arab-owned property - even as evidence shows that local residents are not behind most of the vandalism. Further, many such vandalism acts are done by Arabs to frame Jewish residents, while yet other "price tag" attacks by Arabs targeting Jews go ignored.
Documented evidence doesn't stand in the way of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's claims regarding the attempted lynching[2] of 25 Jewish residents of Samaria by an Arab mob from Kusra last Tuesday.
In talks with Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem on Saturday, Abbas declared "the residents (of Kusra) caught settlers and besieged them, and they did it without tanks, rockets and planes. They gathered around them and told them: you won't leave here until the Palestinian liaison (officers) arrive."
"They (the Arabs) didn't hit them," claimed the PA head, "for we have rights and culture, and aren't like them attacking trees and mosques. They (the Arabs) turned them (the abducted Jews) over without injury to the liaison. Maybe this will be a lesson in morals for them."
Abbas's wild claims come in direct opposition to documented fact, as video filmed by Arab residents clearly shows Arabs chasing the Jews, stooping to pick up rocks, and hurling them at the running Jews. The video, despite being edited to suit Arab propaganda needs, also shows the serious wounds inflicted:
NOTE: If the video doesn't display, view it at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LMNlKwKb5P0
The statements by Abbas, who in the past has had unfortunate encounters with historical fact, including a recent occasion in which he claimed Jesus was a Palestinian,[3] are also belied by death threats uttered by the "cultured" residents of Kusra just before the lynching.
Residents of Esh Kodesh have revealed[4] that two days before the attack, someone uploaded a video of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists training to attack Israel to the town's Facebook page. The video was accompanied by threats, including "you will burn and you will not remain on the earth."
The threats were sent by anonymous users with fake names including Kusra Net, apparently indicating the threats originated from Kusra, where the attack took place.
Testimony disproves Abbas's claims
Abbas's claims further oppose first-hand testimony from the attacked men.
Pinhasi Brown,[5] a resident of Esh Kodesh who was among the beaten and abducted men, testified that the attack came as the group was walking from Esh Kodesh to Givat Hayovel. After a stop along the way at the 'khirba', the ruins of an ancient village[6] built by Shimon Bar-Giora over 2,000 years ago, the Arabs started surrounding them.
Brown's testimony reveals the "cultured" Arabs of Kusra didn't just encircle the Jews to teach them morals.
"When we climbed towards the hilltop, a van filled with Arabs approached us," Brown recalled. "The Arabs came constantly - more and more - and outflanked us, throwing rocks at us. We tried to cut through Shvut Rachel, but they surrounded us from three directions."
"Palestinian police vehicles approached us, and the officer who was portrayed [in the media] as protecting us threw stones at us himself," testified Brown. "Two rocks were thrown at me and I was semi-conscious, I believed it would be like the lynching in Ramallah,[7] and if the army came later, there would be twenty bodies."
"Images of my children flashed before my eyes, and I knew that it would be all over in a few minutes," Brown stated. "The Arabs continued to beat us even after the IDF arrived."
An attack spurred by IDF actions and condoned by the media
Brown's testimony is corroborated by that of Aron Katzov,[8] spokesman of Esh Kodesh, who noted that Arabs surrounded them on trucks, and during a harrowing 2 hours attacked and chased them around the hills towards Kusra, trying to kill them.
Katzov further revealed that the IDF's destruction of Jewish vineyards in Esh Kodesh just hours before the attack, using the draconian "Disruptive Use Orders"[9] which allows such destruction without any Arab claims on the land, may have motivated the attack, emboldening the Arabs and causing the Jews to walk between the two communities in reaffirmation of their connection to the land.
Despite the abundant evidence, Israeli police apparently give credence to Abbas's revisionist history of the event, as seven youths from the attacked group were arrested[10] just after the attack, evidently for questioning regarding the Arab claim that they were intending "price tag" vandalism.
Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir slammed the arrest as "moral bankruptcy" by the police, and further criticized the media's[11] willing collusion in slandering the beaten youth as "vandals."
"People doing 'price tag' (vandalism) don't go in the middle of the day, don't go about without means of defense, and don't do it in a group," argued Ben-Gvir.
Footnotes
[1] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176039#.UzbHudv8iJM
[2] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176039
[3] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/175530
[4] http://http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/262944#.UzbIV9v8iJM
[5] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176083
[6] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128880
[7] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/175494
[8] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176148#.UzbI7tv8iJM
[9] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/174771#.UzbJN9v8iJM
[10] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176181
[11] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176061
Dalit Halevi and Ari Yasher are columnists for Arutz-Sheva.
This article appeared January 13, 2014 in Arutz-Sheva and is
archived at
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176228#.Uza2k9v8iJN
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