Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Double standards

We visit this Palestinian family every Saturday. This is when settlers usually attack - on their holy day of the Shabat. The house is being attacked a lot more than the neighboring houses and the family is wondering why. The reason might be that the father of the family owns a lot of land in the area and also the house is very big. It could be also a strategic point as it is located between the Kiryat Arba settlement and the Givat Ha'avot settlement.

Photo: A Palestinian house frequently attacked by settlers; In the upper part of the picture the houses of Kiryat Arba settlement can be seen.

What is interesting, the Israeli police station is just in a hundred meters away, and apart from many complains, nothing is done and settlers are never accounted for what they do. However if the Palestinians try to, God forbid, defend themselves they would be immediately arrested.
Now the only weapon the family has is a video camera, distributed by B'tzelem, an Israeli human rights organization, within a project called 'Shooting Back'. The one who mainly 'shoots' videos is a young girl. She says after so many attacks she is not afraid of the settlers anymore.

Photo: Givat Ha'avot settlement

Also on the Palestinian land, between the two settlements, a tent synagogue was built with a paved path between the settlements, like if the settlers could not pray elsewhere inside the settlements. Now the Palestinians cant even walk around it and when they did once, they were arrested.

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