Teaching them peace

In the context of his fight against Palestinian incitement against Israel, Netanyahu told the mourning Fogel family that "they are murdering and we are building." This, of course, is not incitement against the entire Palestinian population. And how are we building trust with our neighbors? Machsom Watch volunteers have documented in words and pictures the scenes at the homes of the village of Awarta adjacent to Itamar, which was honored on the day after the murder with a visit from Israel Defense Forces soldiers: crushed furniture, smashed door locks, pulverized electrical appliances, broken walls and contents of cupboards strewn everywhere mixed with remains of food and excrement. A number of inhabitants have complained of thefts of jewelry and cash.

For four days the village was under curfew and all the entrances to it were blocked. Hundreds of soldiers invaded all the houses, put the men aged 15 to 55 up against the wall, cuffed their hands, stripped them and conducted body searches on them. More than 50 men were taken away under arrest. During the course of all this, settlers from Itamar entered the village and right before the soldiers' eyes hurled stones at the houses, accompanying this with cries of "Death to the Arabs." Three homes were damaged and in a number of courtyards locks on well covers were broken open and water spilled out everywhere.

Upon the soldiers' exit from the village, the settlers invaded the property of one of the inhabitants, uprooted 120 olive trees and with the help of bulldozers flattened the land and paved an access road from Itamar to the new outpost they established there, and another road in the direction of the road leading to the settlement of Elon Moreh. All this on lands of the village, of which the inhabitants publicly condemned the murder in Itamar. All this under the open eyes of IDF soldiers and Civil Administration inspectors.

The Israeli media call pogroms like this a "price tag." Like the tags on the vegetable stand at the grocery store. "These claims are not known," the IDF spokesman has informed Haaretz in reply. "The IDF detail that acted only in the village of Awarta apprehended a number of suspects in the murder at Itamar and confiscated dozens of weapons. Representatives of the civil administration who accompanied the force maintained continuous communication with the population of the village. The IDF urges inhabitants who feel they have been done an injustice to submit a complaint via the relevant agencies including the investigative military police."

Since 1998 there have been four incidents of murder in the area of Itamar and the trail led to the settlement and its surroundings. The IDF did not impose a curfew on the settlement nor did it settle into the inhabitants' homes. In only one case (Gur Hamel, who smashed in the head of an elderly Palestinian man) was the murderer caught and sentenced to life imprisonment. In the other cases no one was arrested, or the suspects were released for lack of evidence or the accused disappeared without a trace.