I hear so many Americans talk gushingly about Ha'aretz that I always feel a bit like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas whenever I suggest that, despite having some remarkable quality journalists on its staff, Ha'aretz is overall far less "liberal" than its reputation deserves. (I think the exact term I may have used for it in an earlier post was,"collectively and institutionally a piece of propagandizing crap"). And I'm not really won over by the argument that at least it reports things about Israel that the U.S. newspapers won't. I would acknowledge that having an Israeli newspaper that is willing to criticize Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians does open the door for non-Israelis to enter the debate, just as Jewish Americans who speak up create a space for non-Jews who would otherwise be deterred by fear of the blanket smear of antisemitism. But that doesn't change the fact that "Ha'aretz: It's Less Dreadful On Israel-Palestine Than U.S. News Media!" is not exactly setting the bar very high. Nor does it change the fact that Plucky Little Ha'aretz is perfectly capable of publishing reports that are just as awful on the I/P issue as anything you read over here.
Like this one, published in last Friday's on-line edition:
Palestinians hurt following spat with West Bank settlers
Two Palestinians were lightly injured Friday following confrontations
with settlers near Havat Gilad in the Samaria region.
One of the Palestinians was hurt by rocks hurled at him and the other from an aerosol spray of a yet-to-be-determined nature.
The spat broke out following a dispute over agricultural practices in the area.
Samaria local council officials said that a group of about 25 Palestinians arrived around noon to the vicinity of Havat Gilad and began tending to lands that constitute part of the settlement's fields.
The officials also said that the settlement's residents, accustomed to such provocative acts, preferred to avoid a direct conflict with the Palestinians and notified the IDF.
The Palestinians assaulted the settlers, according to the Samaria council official, using rocks and pick-axes until IDF forces arrived 20 minutes later and dispersed the gathering.
The officials said it was unclear how the Palestinians were injured since the settlers "never went near them."
The Samaria police has commenced investigating the incident, and Israel Police has reported that no arrests were made as of yet.
The two Palestinians injured in the quarrel were evacuated from the scene for medial treatment in a Nablus hospital.
Oh my. Palestinians hospitalized in a "spat" with West Bank settlers over "agricultural practices in the area". How very uncivilized it all sounds. Let's hope they manage to sort it all out over a sweet sherry before dinner.
Where to begin with critiquing that report? Maybe with a bit of context.
Havat Gilad is a settlement outpost that is illegal even under Israeli law (in the real world, all the settlements are illegal of course) but which the IDF - normally so efficient if not deadly when there's a Palestinian structure to be demolished - can't seem to successfully dismantle.
What does it mean to disengage? By: Maia Carter Hallward
April 15, 2005: The outpost of Havat Gilad, in the Nablus district near the settlements
of Yitzhar and Qadumim and the Palestinian villages of Jit and Farata,
is one caravan, 4 people, and has been removed by the Israeli
army twice, with no success. It is still there. Nothing but this one
caravan and an old school bus, and yet extensive army coordination is
required for Palestinian farmers to tend to their fields, as they are
often attacked by the settlers.
I went to Farata with a small group organized by Rabbis for Human
Rights in order to provide some degree of protection to the farmers
while they plowed their land. We were also supposed to be with the
farmers in Jit, but the army said that they could only provide
protection (from the four settlers
in one caravan) in once place, and so the farmers from Jit were told to
go back home, they were not allowed on their fields that day... .
The outpost is built between the Palestinian villages of Jit and Far'aja, deep in the West Bank at the eastern limit of Qalqilya Governorate and to the west of Nablus, and stands on farmland belonging to Palestinian farmers from those two villages. Since the outpost was established, Palestinian farmers have come under repeated attack from the settlers of Havat Gilad as they try to access their fields. These attacks have been observed and reported by Palestinian, Israeli and international eyewitnesses, and include an attack on 21 July 2008 in which settlers sprayed farmers with caustic chemicals, a tactic echoed in today's attack.
Here's a sample of what has been happening for the past five years to the villagers of Jit and Far'aja at the hands of Israeli squatters intent on preventing them cultivating the land they legally own, and upon which they depend for their living:
Time of incident: Approximately 6pm
Place: Far’ata, Qalqiliya district
Witness/es: Victims, villagers
Description of Incident: At approximately 5.30pm on July 21, 2008, two Palestinians farmers from Immatin in the Qalqiliya district were working on their land, in a valley close to Far’ata when they saw five settlers from the illegal Israeli outpost of Havat Gilad approaching, two on horses, three on foot. As the settlers started surrounding the two Palestinian farmers, they phoned their family for help. In the meantime, an additional fifteen Palestinians from Far’ata who had been working in their land nearby rushed over towards the farmers from Immatin to help them. Seeing this, the settlers went up the hill, yelling at the Palestinians that they would beat them, throwing stones on them and starting smaller fires. Approximately 15 more masked settlers gradually joined them.
At approximately 6pm some 15 Israeli soldiers arrived. The Palestinian farmers reported that they did not do anything to push the settlers away. When a 54 year old Palestinian farmer approached the soldiers to ask why they were letting the settlers attack the farmers on their lands, a settler came between the soldier and the Palestinian and sprayed the Palestinian with an unknown chemical substance on his arms, hands and in his eyes, which caused them to burn and inflame so that he could not see. Other settlers joined in hitting this Palestinian with a stick on the back of his neck and on the top of his hand. When his 22 year old son tried to stop the settlers from attacking his father, the settler sprayed his arms and hands with the same unknown substance.
According to the victims, the soldiers did nothing to stop the settlers from hitting them. However, they began shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at the Palestinians. A 34 year old Palestinian was shot with a rubber bullet at the top of his thigh from approximately thirty meters away. After this, a soldier threw a tear gas bomb directly in front of him.
The farmers reported that the fires, some started by the settlers and others started by the heat of the teargas canisters, destroyed 50 olive trees at one location and 10 more at another location, before Palestinian firemen could put them out.
After the confrontation had ended, the injured Palestinians went to the local clinic where they received medical treatment. Both Palestinian men who had been sprayed with the unknown chemical substance reported that the burning sensations caused by the spray had not subsided the following day, more than 20 hours after the initial attack.
A group of settlers set fire to land belonging to residents of the village Farata, located east of Nablus, with flames consuming 45 dunums of village agricultural land.
Above: Settlers look on under the protection of Occupation soldiers
On 19 September, a fire was started in the northeast part of village land, meters from the Zohar Gilad settlement. Farmers had prepared crops of barely and wheat in the area, but had avoided entering it on account of the assaults they face at the hands of settlers. These attacks have happened regularly since the settlement went up on the outskirts of the village.
For the past five years, settlers have attacked farmers and residents. In addition to physical assault, settlers often destroy or steal agricultural machinery. Burnings are also frequent, occurring primarily during the harvest season...
Our mobile health van, sponsored by Palestinian Medical Relief Society, climbs steep switchbacks through narrow alleyways to the top of the hill. We arrive at the town meeting hall in the village of Far'ata (population 700) and start unpacking our boxes of pharmaceuticals and other equipment. It is here that we set up our makeshift clinic and start seeing patients…
At the end of the session, we pay a house call at the home of Basel Ibrahim Mahmood Salah, who was assaulted by Israeli settlers five days ago while trying to harvest his olive trees. His testimony, which is translated into English through the help of Dr. Osama, follows:
left - Basel Ibrahim Mahmood Salah immediately after being attacked by settlers in an olive grove near the village of Far’ata and the settlement of Gilad on 25 October 2006
right -Basel during our visit in 30 October 2006
...12 May: A 45 year-old Palestinian woman from Far'ata (Qalqiliya) was physically assaulted by Israeli settlers from Gil'ad outpost while working her land.
- B'Tselem: Settler Violence
They startled me, and I backed away from them. I stood on a boulder and said, in Hebrew, “I am not going home, this is my land. You go home. I am working my land.” Then I picked up some stones to protect myself. When they saw me picking up stones, they backed away and went up the hill. At that moment, I saw a group of about 10 settlers standing by our flock. My brother had run away and left the sheep and goats.
Two settlers began to lead away a white goat of ours, each one grabbing one of the goat's ears. They headed eastward, toward the Gilad Farm settlement. The other settlers followed them. I ran after them to get back our goat, but when I was abut 40-50 meters from them, I stopped and returned because my father called out to me that he was afraid the settlers would attack me. He said, “Come back, son. Let the goat go, you are worth more than the goat….
We all returned to the village except for my brother Hani, who went and grazed the flock far from Gilad Farm, and he remained there until nighttime. The settler's action really upset us. We were on our land and weren't harming anybody when they came and attacked us.
Earlier today, Tareq and I went to the police station in Qedumim to file a complaint. This is not the first time that settlers from Gilad Farm have attacked us. Last summer, they assaulted my father, wounding him in the head, and also burned our crops. Tareq filed complaints with the police, but we don't know what happened with them.
Testimony 2: I have a few plots of land that I inherited from my father. About six years ago, settlers established Gilad Farm about two kilometers from one of my plots. Since then, they have attacked farmers in the area and torched and cut trees. Las spring, they set fire to orchards in the area, and the fire spread to my land. As a result, I lost many olive trees and lots of money during the harvest season. I filed a complaint, but nothing came of it. A little while later, at the checkpoint, my permit to work in Israel was taken from me, and now I’m unemployed. I think they took it because of the complaint I filed.
I work my land only in the early morning hours, so I don’t encounter settlers. On Saturday, 10 January, I went to plow the land with my son Tareq, 23, around 5:30 A.M. We worked quietly until about 7.30. Tareq drove the tractor and I removed stones and weeded.
At about 7:30, I heard shouting. I saw 10-15 settlers about 20-30 meters from us. They had a dog with them. They shouted at us and threw stones in our direction. I called my family to tell them what was happening. The settlers continued to throw stones at us and try to expel us from the land. Then two men armed with M-16 rifles arrived. They came to about three meters from us and didn't let us defend ourselves. A few minutes later, about fifteen persons – relatives of ours from Immatin and farmers from Far’ata who were working in the area – joined us.
About fifteen minutes after that, three Hummer jeeps and a regular jeep pulled up and officers and soldiers got out. The moment they arrived, the settlers got braver and began to shout and swear loudly. The soldiers told us to move away. As we did, settlers came toward us and said it was the land of Our Father Abraham. The settlers swore at us and the soldiers did not tell them to go away. I asked one of the officers to move the settlers away, but he told me, in Hebrew, to go. I speak and understand Hebrew well...
- Peres' poor harvest By Roni Schocken
Two weeks ago, Hebron settlers attacked a Palestinian family while it was harvesting olives in Tel Rumeida. Police who arrived at the scene after the violence had ended detained three left-wing protesters, who had refused to vacate the premises. In another violent incident on the same day, settlers hurled stones at a family harvesting olives in the West Bank village of Azmut, not far from the settlement of Alon Moreh. They also ripped apart the bags of olives.
Two weeks earlier, two Israelis were arrested for allegedly setting fire to an olive grove belonging to a Palestinian from the village of Kadum, near the settlement of Kedumim. During that same week, five olive trees were reportedly uprooted and 15 others were sprayed with pesticides in the Palestinian village of Jit, which is adjacent to the Havat Gilad outpost. Two weeks before that, settlers torched an olive grove in the Yitzhar area.
The president could have condemned the law-breaking settlers. He could have called on the security forces to protect the Palestinian families and not to leave them at the mercy of violent criminals. He could have criticized the idleness of the political leadership. Above everything else, Shimon Peres could have relocated the harvest kick-off event to one of the Palestinian olive groves that was torched and destroyed, thus demonstrating that the state's No. 1 citizen recognizes the right of Palestinians to harvest olives without risking their lives and property.
But the president preferred to hold the event at his residence.
On the 15th of April a gang of Zionist settlers from the Kedumim settlement uprooted and destroyed more than 1000 mature olive trees in the village of Jeet, located east of Qalqilya. The trees belonged to Zakariya as-Sadha and Dhafer Khalil, both residents of Jeet. This attack is part of larger series of assaults undertaken by settler mobs against Palestinian farmers.
This is not the first time that settlers of Kedumim have attacked the people of Jeet. On the 11th of April, more than 30 religious settlers ambushed 67-year-old farmer Sadiq Yasri and his wife while they worked on their lands near the Shefat Ami outpost. The attackers threw stones and beat Sadiq Yasri, causing wounds on his face and body. Farmers from the village of Imatin were attacked in a similar manner in the same place at the beginning of this month when settlers attempted to steal their tractor. Upon failing to do so, the settlers damaged the tractor and stole parts of it. In another incident, a settler gang attacked farmers tending their sheep. After beating the farmers they proceeded to kill a number of sheep.
Local human rights Coordinator Zakarieyah As-Seda said, “The residents and their property are continually attacked by the settlers who prevent people from accessing to their lands, stealing the crops, cutting the trees, burning land and attacking homes.”
As-Seda also said that Israelis from a settlement outpost called “Havat Gilad” are notorious for attacking Palestinians in the area. He said the attacks included “throwing stones at Palestinian vehicles” on the road to the nearby village of Huwwara.
He said the residents have filed multiple complaints with the Israeli police, who did not stop the attacks, which he alleged took place according to an “organized schedule.”...
…The Israeli authorities handed out military order to Kafr Qadum village council stating the confiscation of lands owned by the residents in an attempt to construct a military road separating the village from the settlement of Kidumim. Moreover the Israeli settlers of Kidumim uprooted 450 Olive trees owned by Gamel Hasan Khadr in Jit town. Maan news (May 7, 2007)…
An IDF force alerted to the scene separated the groups, the Palestinians said.
According to the Palestinians, the settlers gathered as a group of Palestinian farmers were working in their fields, and attacked them after IDF soldiers had arrived at the scene.
Muhammed Abu Ba'aher, 18, told Ynet that the settlers beat him and vandalized his tractor. "They slashed the tires, broke the headlights and cursed," he said.
Police investigators arrived after the incident had ended. They photographed the damaged tractor and took the brother of the Palestinian who was attacked to the station to file a complaint. He was later returned to his village by the investigators....
- Israeli activists help Palestinians harvest olive crop by Jennie Matthew
Several hundred Israelis, from left-wing activists to moderate Jewish settlers, regularly volunteer to help Palestinians pick olives, believing that their presence deters the worst excesses of radical violence…
A middle-aged woman in a flowered dress and white headscarf balances on a branch to reach fruit as an army jeep drives by. "Thank God. That's what there is," grins Ahmed Yamiin, thanking volunteers profusely for their help as he sews up sacks of freshly picked olives in this village where Jewish settlers have routinely vandalised olive groves.
Across the road, behind Jit and beyond Yamiin's weather-beaten face, looms the settlement of Qedumim, with its red-roofed villas and manicured gardens.
"Normally there are 150 to 200 people [helping] in the village, but they are too frightened to come here," he says. Only Yamiin and three other Palestinians were willing to join the volunteers this day in harvesting the olives next to the road. "Some of them come with dogs. When they come along, some drive in their cars very dangerously to scare us off. They throw rocks. They shoo us away," says Yamiin when asked about the Jewish settlers.
..[A]lready this harvest observers are seeing a tentative improvement -- the first since the high court ruled in June that Israel, as the occupying force, has a duty to protect the local population and ensure they can use their land. "I've already seen more flexibility from the army in terms of willingness to do what the Palestinians ask," says Rabbi Arik Ascherman, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, which helps with the harvest in 30 West Bank villages.
"Although there've been some days when the soldiers have been nasty or threatening," he adds. "One day they said 'you move any further than here and we'll shoot you and treat you like terrorists.'"
The Israeli military insisted it was cooperating with police and the civil administration "to ensure that the Palestinian olive farmers are able to pick their olives without disruption". Rabbis For Human Rights, which has a couple of hundred volunteers on its books, has been helping with the harvest for the past four years. Their activities are bolstered by other Israeli groups that also send volunteers.
Cordoba school in Hebron was attacked twice in two days by settlers from Beit Hadassa who vandalized the newly renovated garden funded by ICRC on 25 November and damaged a water pipe leading to the school the following day. On 4 and 5 December students at Jit Secondary school in Qalqiliya governorate were attacked by settlers who reportedly attempted to run one student over and shot at others inside the school. On 16 January, Israeli soldiers and four Israeli settlers entered the Sawyeh al Liban Boys Secondary school in north Nablus where they tried to enter the examination halls after accusing the children of throwing stones.
So, now we can put this genteel "spat" into some kind of context, what can we say about Friday's report in Ha'aretz? A few things that immediately come to mind are:
1. This is not a "spat" or a "quarrel", it's almost certainly an assault - the latest in a series of well-documented assaults. Ha'aretz wouldn't be calling it a "spat" or a "quarrel" if it were two Israelis hospitalized in the latest of a long series of attacks on some kibbutz by infiltrating Palestinians trying to force them off their farmland.
2. Settler violence directed at Palestinian farmers with the intention of intimidating them off their land really isn't accurately described as "a dispute over agricultural practices".
3. That farmland doesn't "constitute part of the settlement's fields"; illegal settlement outposts don't have fields. They're illegal; they don't have anything except the right to go away.
4. Palestinians farming land they legally own in spite of the illegal presence of Israeli settlers is not a "provocative act", any more than Palestinian farmland that settlers plonk a trailer on becomes "part of the settlement's fields". A so-called professional journalist shouldn't simply regurgitate these descriptions without comment. This is the ideological terminology of a Yesha press release, not a serious newspaper.
5. On the one hand the incident reportedly began when "The Palestinians assaulted the settlers...using rocks and pick-axes"; on the other hand, the settlers don't know how any Palestinians could have gotten hurt because the settlers "never went near them." Well, if the settlers were never anywhere near them, how did the Palestinians assault them? How is that even possible? What's the range of a pick-axe? Is Ha'aretz content simply to juxtapose whatever contradictory claims the settlers feed them, and call that reporting the news? It's bad enough that Ha'aretz should dishonestly reduce the latest attack on the farmers of Jit to a he-said-she-said story of a spat between dueling "agricultural practices"; do we really have to put up with internal incoherence too?
The really odd thing about the whole tone of this Orwellian report is that Ha'aretz knows very well the story of the long struggle by farmers in Jit and Far'ata against settlers trying to violently force them off their land, because the story's already been covered in respected news outlets like ... well ... Ha'aretz! For example, here's a feature it ran on the subject of Jewish Israelis who are so appalled by the repeated settler violence carried out on area farmers by settlers acting in the name of the Jewish state that they go to Jit every year to participate in the olive harvest, in the hope that their presence might deter the settlers from attacking the farmers and stealing their crops.
I'm not sure "liberal" is the best word for an Israeli newspaper that prints Gideon Levy in its opinion section, but balances it with absurd doublespeak like this article in its news section. "Schizophrenic", possibly; but not "liberal". It's not "liberal" to characterize the latest assault on Palestinian farmers by settlers from an illegal outpost as "a dispute over agricultural practices in the area". It's not "liberal" to massage translations or edit content between your Hebrew and English editions, so as to omit awkward facts that don't show the IDF in a good light. It's not "liberal" to take advertising revenue and run prominent advertisements month after month on behalf of racists who advocate the extermination of the Arab "vermin" from Greater Israel, and call for "the total destruction of the Palestinian people, the murder of large numbers of Muslim civilians, the assassination of the family members of Arab rulers, and the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons against dozens of countries". It's not "liberal" that once you sign up for Ha'aretz's email list they send you appeals to “support the IDF”, or to buy a home in one of the illegal settlements in the West Bank, or to go on an ‘adventure holiday’ to Israel where I will be briefed by real Mossad officials, take a tour of the annexation wall and even get to sit in on a “trial” of a Palestinian “terrorist”... but not to support more liberal causes like, for example, ending the occupation.
None of these features are "liberal", but they're all just as much part of Ha'aretz as the more critical output that we swoon over in this country. Ha'aretz shouldn't get a pass on the rest of it, just because it waves Gideon Levy, Amira Hass or Akiva Eldar at us from time to time.
UPDATE 16 May: Added screen shots of the original story in Ha'aretz.
