Posted on 02/03/2007 3:45:21 PM PST by SJackson
Arabs and leftists uprooted a Jewish orchard and went on to plant olive trees in a Jewish community on the Jewish "New Year of Trees.” One left-wing activist hit a security guard with his car.
The incident occurred Saturday morning at Sde Boaz, a hilltop community in Gush Etzion located at the region’s highest point, between Neve Daniel and Betar Illit.
The destroyed orchard, consisted of apple, cherry, pomegranate, pear, carob and olive trees. After destroying the trees, a dozen activists made their way to Sde Boaz. They accompanied Arabs from the PA-controlled village of El-Khader and began planting olive trees adjacent to the community. Dozens more foreign volunteers and Arabs climbed up from the valley, where they had been waiting, and ignored IDF calls to cease until the Civil Administration could clarify the land’s ownership.
A man who said his name was Ariel, from the Ta’ayush organization, argued with IDF officers, claiming that the fact that the government destroyed a stable that Jews had built there proved that the land did not belong to the residents and could therefore be assumed to belong to the Arabs, even without a deed. The stable was destroyed in January, 2005, just weeks before the clashes at the Amona outpost.
Ezra Nawi, a veteran Ta’ayush coordinator usually active in the southern Hevron Hills, arrived at the scene with hundreds of olive trees and several American, Norwegian and British volunteers. Nawi drove through the community of Sde Boaz, striking the security chief with his car.
Soldiers who witnessed the incident accompanied the security chief to file charges against Nawi when the police arrived, about a half-hour later.
Nawi also screamed racial epithets at an Ethiopian Jewish soldier and used the derogatory word “frenk” to refer to the PA Arab he was illegally driving through the community.
The IDF regional commander showed up with an order declaring the area a closed military zone, but declined to enforce it until the police came. Eventually, two police officers arrived, but only after nearly all of the trees planted, including in one of the community’s vineyards, did the large group begin to make its way back toward El-Khader. The commander told Sde Boaz residents that anyone who touched the olive trees would be arrested.
The group began planting at another plot along the road, hastily sticking the remaining trees in the ground. Residents say that plot of land is worked by an elderly Arab man who has good relations with the community.
When police and IDF soldiers attempted to arrest one of the Arab youths, the foreigners and the Arabs, directed by the Israelis, freed him by force. The man escaped and Ta’ayush’s “Ariel” was arrested for directing the violence.
Only after the group finally left did residents notice that the community’s orchard - in the valley below Sde Boaz, below the point of vision - was destroyed. The vandalism occurred on the very day that the trees reached the age at which their fruits became permitted for consumption according to Jewish Law. Saturday was Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish New Year for Trees, from which three years are counted before fruit is consumed.
The actions of the raucous group left local residents in shock. “It is unbelievable that these people, on their way to pull on the heartstrings of the police and IDF, telling them ‘we only want to plant these olive trees as an expression of peace,’ spent what had to be a long time uprooting and destroying a beautiful orchard on land that clearly belongs to the community,” a statement from the Sde Boaz secretariat read. “That they did this on Tu B’Shvat makes it no less than a hate crime.”
Residents also said that the provocation failed in its intention to provoke them into violence. “We somehow doubt the fact that these people brazenly destroyed an orchard, hit someone with a car and freed an arrestee from IDF and police custody through violence will figure as prominently in the headlines as name-calling by Jewish residents of Hevron or dubious claims of uprooted olive trees in Samaria,” the statement concluded.
At press time, none of Israel’s state-run television or radio outlets have reported the incident.
Photos coming soon.
The reporter, a resident of Sde Boaz, witnessed the incident first-hand
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Destruction, yes, it's what they do. And what better time than a holiday.
So incredibly sick.
Ping!
:-(
What exactly is carob?
Correct me please but it seems to me the Jews have nothing but made improvements to this area including providing jobs for all.
These idiots come along a destroy a thriving community therefore destroy everyones livelihood including their own.
Leftism too.
It is a chocolate flavored plant that was once touted as a healthy chocolate substitute...until the confections made from it were found to be just as fatty as regular chocolate!
Carob has a flavor similar to chocolate.
And it's safe to feed to dogs.
Mark
And it's safe to feed to dogs.
I'd forgotten that. Good point.
health food chocolate
"So incredibly sick."
Yes, it is.
Which is what makes it taste good.
Instead of destroying improvements in Israel, Leftists and followers of the religion of peace might want to think about tearing down their own decrepit homes and installing working toilets and showers.
So let me guess, nothing will be done about the destroyed orchard, and the cops and IDF will protect the olive trees.
I swear a lot of the news coming out of Israel reads like a Rod Serling screenplay.
Appreciated.
pro-israel/Judaic/Russian Jewry ping list
It nice to know that they not Martha Stewart type Leftist and Arabs I doubt they could grow a garden ROFL
Note that a bunch of leftist Westerners (no doubt "peace" activists) joined the Islamists in their destructive rampage. The Islamists and Western nihilists have one important thing in common: They seek destruction for the sake of destruction. People who lack the intelligence or mindset to build anything will often seek to destroy things that people better than themselves created.
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