‘They’re The Enemy’ and ‘You Are A Provocateur’ to Settlers Attacking Soldiers

May it be a Shavua Tov. I failed in my race against time to submit this blog entry before Shabbat for reasons explained below that are actually very connected to the topic of this entry:

Although this week’s Torah portion (Khukat) fast forwards and skips over thirty-eight years of wandering in the desert, we continue to read of murmurings and rebellions against God and Moses. In Numbers 21:5 we read “And the people spoke against God and against Moses.” As so often, Moses intercedes for the people to stop the poisonous snakes God unleashes.

I can’t help but think of the shock and dismay that so many Israelis have been feeling as settlers defame and demonstrate against army officers, slash tires, and allegedly almost ran over soldiers. Ironically I first learned of what was going on when I was under arrest in the Binyamin police station and as the police communicated with each other while I was in a squad car and they were looking for the vehicles involved. I had been falsely arrested after a settler lied and said I threw a stone at him. I thought to myself, “Here I am again falsely arrested. Have we ever slashed tires or tried to run over soldiers?” Do human rights defenders sometimes have trenchant criticism of the behavior of our security forces? Yes. That is part of the job of watchdog ngos. Although the army is a sacred cow in Israel, it is actually our democratic responsibility to criticize where appropriate. After allowing all of the killing of children in Gaza, I don’t know how many Israelis continue to aspire to having the “most moral army in the world, and there are those who argue that the traditional IDF value of “purity of arms” was always wrong and should be eliminated from the army’s code of ethics. However, if we do still aspire to having the most moral army in the world, our children must be held to the highest standards of international human rights law and Jewish morality. Over thirty years I have seen our forces act in the way I would expect from a Jewish soldier, and times where they haven’t. So, yes we have and will continue to hold our children to the highest moral standards. But physically attack soldiers? Not anybody I have ever been responsible for has ever done that. And even when I level criticism, I try to do so with derekh eretz (basic decency and clean language).

The fact is that I had again been attacked and bitten by a dog from the illegal even according to Israel outpost “Sadeh Yonatan” that the army has evacuated countless times. They always rebuild immediately with public crowd funding campaigns. This last time MK Har-Melekh filmed herself helping them rebuild. Several of us have had to undergo rabies protocol. This dog often bites when accompanying settlers and their flock on an almost daily or twice daily trek as long as the trek through the desert (well, not quite) from their outpost either to the outskirts of Dir Dibwan or the houses of the Bedouin neighborhood of Mukhmas. In Mukhmas they sometimes enter homes, rip open sacks of food for the Bedouin flocks and give to their flocks, etc. Sometimes a “minyan” of settlers arrives and desecrates God’s Name by “praying” and then wreaking destruction. Settlers have also threatened to murder those who don’t flee and to burn their homes.

Yes, as can be seen in video clips, I did throw a rock on the ground near the dog after already having been bitten in order to try to keep him at bay. I was face to face with the settler, and could easily have hit him or the dog with the rock if that had been my intent.

Returning to the connection with this week’s portion, I do sometimes ask whether or not Moses could have exercised his leadership in a different way that could avoided the successive rebellions. I will leave that as an open question. But the attacks on soldiers that now have people riled up but will be forgotten in another week are truly a case of “hagolem hakam al yotzro,” the Jewish version of the Frankenstein’s monster that turns on its creator.

It is simply impossible to understand the actions of those settlers outside of the context of decades of settlers acting violently and almost never being brought to justice, no matter how clear the evidence. Whether or not Israeli investigative reporter Ilana Dayan’s revelation is true that a secret document put together by the Israeli army commander for the Occupied territories says that Internal Security Minister has issue orders not to bring settlers to justice for acts of terror, there is no question that this phenomenon has been going on for many years and has greatly intensified since the election of our current government. The phenomenon has been on steroids after October 7^th and been further reinforced by the election of Donald Trump.

And now back to Mukhmas. Rushing as I am to complete this dvar Torah before Shabbat, I am concurrently on the line with the residents and our volunteers as again settlers from Sadeh Yonatan and their flock are among the homes. (In the end, there was no way complete the dvar Torah on time to submit it, while communicating with the army and on the phone with the Palestinian Bedouin residents of Mukhmas and our human rights volunteers who were there and allowing me to be home for Shabbat. A.A.)

When I was arrested and given the almost automatic 15 day restraining order from the entire West Bank that the Binyamin police make a condition of release for Israeli human rights defenders at almost any opportunity. I spent Shabbat in jail rather than agree, and actually couldn’t have signed if I had been willing to agree because the Binyamin police did not accede to my request to interrogate me before Shabbat began, as they sometimes have. Last Saturday night the judge cut the time in half, to July 6th. However, having been in jail, I had no opportunity to gather and present the videos and other evidence showing what had really happened. I appealed, and the police chose not to oppose my appeal.

In addition to various legal arguments including the fact that we had videos that prove I didn’t throw stones at either the settler or the serially biting dog, I spoke the truth. Some lawyers advised sticking to the facts of the case and whether there was a need for the restraining order imposed on me, but I felt compelled to also lay out the real reasons I was arrested and given the restraining order.

We have countless almost daily documented cases from Mukhmas and other locations where Palestinians or human rights defenders called the Binyamin police and they didn’t come. The army comes a bit more often, and recently imposed a closed military area for a month. That would be great, if they enforced it against settlers. But, even if they sometimes come and move settlers away from the Bedouin homes, they are not detained or prosecuted either for their actions or the simple fact that they repeatedly enter a closed military zone. We are not even sure that the settlers are shown the closure order. A person is only liable for such an order after it has been presented to him/her. The settlers and the flock and the serially biting dog come back day after day because they know they will suffer no consequences.

“But they are the enemy.”

Under arrest, I had a long conversation with a police officer whose name I will not reveal. I pointed out the “eifa v’eifa” discriminatory behavior in which the army and police will come in an instant if Palestinians are endangering Jews, but they don’t come or come very late and do very little if it is Palestinians are being attacked by Israelis. They are defenseless, just as the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice pointed out. We can back this claim us with hundreds of police event numbers and proof of real time photos sent to the police and army as attacks, trespassing, harassment, theft and destruction unfold. Several times she responded, “But they are the enemy.” The implication was that because the entire Palestinian people are our enemies, our security forces have no obligation to defend them. I wish that I believed that this was an unrepresentative comment and that Ilana Dayan made up her report. But the statistics don’t lie. The reality is that the Binyamin police don’t protect Palestinians.

And the settlers who throw dirty diapers at security forces one day bring them cookies the next. When I was released from jail, a police officer was bringing to jail two additional suspects in the attacks on security forces. He was smiling and joking with them and talking to them about mutual acquaintances.

The army did come relatively quickly tonight, but not clear that they did anything more than tell the settlers to leave. If there are no consequences, they will be back again and again and again.

“You are a provocateur”

Another police officer said this to me when I was arrested. It was not an isolated comment. We hear this all the time. One officer said in a previous court hearing that every time I come in to the West Bank it is only to cause a provocation. In other words, in they eyes of the Binyamin police defending human beings created in God’s Image when the police and army don’t is a provocation. A former commander of the station once told me that everything would be quiet if we weren’t there, and the Palestinians and the settlers would get along. In other words, if nobody gave Palestinians uppity ideas that they have rights and nobody stood beside them, things would be totally quiet because Palestinians would need to quietly and submissively accept what ever settlers do to them and be grateful that the settlers didn’t do worse.

It is actually terribly quiet in the abandoned tents of abandoned shepherding communities including the community of Marajat where the residents are fleeing even as I write because of a new outpost being set up literally adjacent to their homes and school. Sometimes our presence does prevent this. But all too often we discover that the former commander was wrong. The settler violence or the threat of settler violence combined with the refusal of security forces to intervene leads to silent abandoned communities even when human rights defenders try to protect families.

Oh. I almost forgot. Many were outraged when it was claimed that a young settler shepherd was injured by live fire by soldiers on the night that the soldiers and police officers were attacked. The army is investigating, as it should. They are claiming that it may have happened at another location. If the army opened fire when their lives were not in danger, that is absolutely to be condemned. HOWEVER, where are all these voices when soldiers fire on Palestinians. Their should be one law for all. One rule for all when it is permitted to open fire. “But they are the enemy.”

So this is the golem that has turned on its creator. The combination of a lack of a true international response pressuring Israel to uphold its obligations, a systematic lack of law enforcement bringing violent settlers to justice because Palestinians are not seen as worthy of protection and the attitude that those of us with our finger in the dike doing what security forces should be doing are the real problem and must be stopped, together lead to settlers attacking soldiers and police officers. Of course they are shocked and outraged when the security forces takes actions against them that the settlers had every reason to believe would never happen.

And just as Moses came to the defense of the perpetrators in Parashat Khukat, I will continue both to put my body on the line to stop the settlers and defend the Palestinian farmers and shepherds also created in God’s Image (I am currently recovering from two fractures in my neck and a deep gash in my head from a recent settler attack), and pray for the souls of the settlers, also created in God’s Image.

May we know TRUE peace in the spirit of Shabbat