The Jewish Voice for Peace has posted a video online which shows a right-wing Jewish extremist attempting to stab a prominent human rights chief in the occupied West Bank territories of Palestine.
According to the account of the story narrated by Israeli media outlets, the President of Rabbis for Human Rights, Arik Asherman, had led a group of peace volunteers, international observers and some Jewish activists against the occupation to the occupied West Bank to help Palestinian olive harvesters to harvest their produce without attacks from Israeli settlers.
Palestinian farmers have come under many attacks from illegal Israeli settlers, especially when it is time for them to harvest their produce. Israeli settlers either set fire to Palestinian olive fields or attack the farmers with dangerous weapons.
This sporadic violence compelled Rabbi Asherman to lead the peace activists to scare the Israeli extremist settlers in order to allow the Palestinians to do their harvesting peacefully.
When the team arrived in the village of Awata, an outpost of Gideonim, they noticed that suspected Israeli settlers were stealing olives and others were also setting fire to the hillside, destroying the Palestinians produce in the process.
Rabbi Asherman said that because firefighters did not arrive quickly, he went to the area personally to try and put out the fire himself.
It was at that point that the masked man who set the fire, ostensibly a settler from the nearby outpost, tried to prevent Rabbi Asherman from reaching the site of the blaze. In the video captured, the masked man threw stones and pulled out a knife, repeatedly swinging it in Asherman’s direction. He also kicked and punched Asherman when he got close enough. When the attacker finally realized that there were other people around, he fled the scene.
Asherman and other activists remained at the scene in order to direct the army and police toward the attacker. Asherman said in a statement that it took police 30 minutes to arrive at the scene. By then, the attacker had already fled.
Rabbis for Human Rights said in a statement, “Our presence in the groves with the farmers helps keep them safe, as extremists are far less likely to cause problems when they know Israelis and internationals are present.”
A police spokesperson confirmed the incident and blamed it on what she described as “anarchists,” and said that the police are still searching for the attacker.
According to another human rights group, Yesh Din, only four out of the 246 criminal complaints of damage to olive trees made by Palestinian farmers resulted in indictments between 2005 and 2014. The organization further revealed that only 7.4 percent of West Bank Israeli police investigations from Palestinian victims of offenses committed against them or their property by Israeli civilians, result in indictments.
Awata village attack by Jewish extremist: “A right-wing Jewish extremist threw stones at and attempted to stab the President of Rabbis for Human Rights, Rabbi Arik Asherman, following an olive harvest coordinated with the Israeli army on Friday. Nobody was significantly injured in the incident.” (More via +972 Magazine)
Posted by Jewish Voice for Peace on Friday, October 23, 2015.
“From the moment the olive harvest begins, we witness a series of serious incidents involving attacks on harvesters and damage to trees. This recurring phenomenon is a result of failure to enforce the law,” Yesh Din’s research department said.
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