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Three news items caught this author’s eye today. Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA cites an IsraelJustice.com reports that a police detective has admitted to using Arab stone throwers to stop young Jews from hiking through West Bank (Yehuda and the Shomron) on July 29.
In the second item, the IDF has restricted Jewish travel in Judea and Samaria under the guise of “fear of violent clashes between nationalists and police.”
The third news item is that the Government has okayed a database of all Israelis’ fingerprints, pictures.
All three news items constitute further degradations, on the part of the government of Israel, of Jewish sovereignty and Freedom of movement on Jewish Land.
Eighteen months ago, both Nadia Matar and Israel National News reported the military’s institution of technical identification of Jewish residents at Yesha checkpoints. Could it be that eighteen months later, Yosef Q. Israeli has yet to connect the dots of oppression? Could it be that they’ve lost the “fire in the belly” and submit meekly to totalitarian, evil, governance?
There is one phrase which must be erased from the Israeli lexicon;
ma’ala sot (What can we do?). MB
Police Admit Used Arab Stone Throwers to Stop Young Jews From Hiking Through West Bank on July 29.
Excerpts;
Israeli police, in what appears to be a new tactic to quell Jewish nationalists, have begun to use Arab provocateurs in the West Bank.
Police have acknowledged that they used Arab stone throwers to stop young Jews from hiking through the West Bank on July 29.
Police detective Aharon Yair told a Jerusalem magistrate that Israeli security forces colluded with Arab provocateurs as part of an ambush to arrest the hikers.
Yair, when questioned by defense attorney Naftali Wurtzburger, admitted that special police forces, disguised in civilian clothes but wearing police hats, hid in an ambush together with Palestinian Bedouin waiting for the Jewish hikers to arrive.
W.”I am telling you that most of these hikes end quietly.”
Y. “The fact is that were police forces there. We understood that like last week, when there was a violent incident when they [the hikers] came to them [the Bedouin] with weapons, we were ready because we knew that this was a place of confrontation. They [Bedouin] set up cameras and therefore the police were there.”
W. “If the police were there and watched the confrontation, what was the problem of the police to stand openly and prevent them [the hikers] from passing and if it was not permitted, to stop them. The situation, as I see it, looks like an ambush. Somebody hides out like thieves in the night.”
Y. “I’m not the one who decides. There are officers above me who decide what is overt and what is concealed.”
W. “You agree that special police forces were in the area at that time?
Y. “That’s what I said.”
W. “You said that they were in disguised civilian clothes?”
Y. “They wore a police hat and they shouted that they are police and identified themselves as police. Some were in a hiding place and some waited on alert.”
Police arrested five Jewish hikers near the Jewish community of Kockav Hashachar, including three adults, Netanel Kaufman, David Hai and Yitzhak Yisrael Hai and two minors, as they passed by a Bedouin encampment, close to the Jewish outpost of Maoz Esther. One of the armed escorts of the group of about 100 hikers shot in the air to disband the Bedouin, whom they said had thrown rocks at them, causing a rock-throwing melee. At least three settlers were injured, including one who had to be hospitalized, after a Bedouin hit him over the head with a stick.
Yair said that three Bedouin were arrested but were handed over to the military prosecutor who had released them. None of the Bedouin were injured.
“All of sudden policemen disguised as civilians but with police hats suddenly came out from behind a small hill and arrested the person who shot in the air and some of the armed escorts,” Daniella Weiss, a Jewish dissident and one of the organizers of the hike,” said.
Weiss said that the police intended to arrest the armed escorts so that the group would have to abandon the hike but the youth continued and later succeeded in circumventing police cordons outside Jerusalem.
To read the entire report, click here or here.
IDF Restricts Jewish Travel in Judea and Samaria
Full Text;
The IDF has clamped restrictions on Jews wanting to travel in portions of Judea and Samaria because of fear of violent clashes between nationalists and police. Samaria Brigade commander Col. Itzik Bar said the limits will be in force for two days. The new restrictions will result in soldiers inspecting Jewish vehicles at checkpoints and requiring permits to travel.
Nationalists next week plan a six-day trip to various communities that the government has threatened to destroy. Activist Daniela Weiss, former mayor of Kedumim, said her group has no intentions of asking for permission to travel in Israel.
Violent clashes occurred last week after the IDF and police forced Jewish residents from an unauthorized building in a hilltop community.
Gov’t OKs Database of All Israelis’ Fingerprints, Pics
Full Text;
The government approved a bill Sunday that would create a central database containing every Israeli citizen’s fingerprints and photograph. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the law would implement an “unprecedented revolution” in order to combat passport counterfeiting and improve the service provided to citizens by governmental bodies.
If the law passes, identity cards will include a “smart card,” which, in addition to the biometric information, would allow citizens to contact governmental services digitally and electronically. Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said that a state-supervised database could be created “that must be the only place such data is stored.”