Tarnishing the residents of Judea and Samaria is unacceptable

MK Matan Kahana to INN: Tarnishing the residents of Judea and Samaria is unacceptable

MK Matan Kahana (National Unity Party) refused on Sunday to define the clashes between Jews and Arabs in the Binyamin region over the weekend as "settler violence".
Speaking to Israel National News, Kahana said that the acts should be condemned, "but to call them 'settler violence'? There are over half a million law-abiding Jewish citizens there, the salt of the earth, the best of the best. To call them all 'settler rioters' is uncacceptable."
"There is serious terrorism there and the army, the police and the Shin Bet must act decisively against terrorism, and in the same breath I say, under no circumstances should we take the law into our own hands. That is terrible," added Kahana.
[…] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/373259

What happened during Saturday's Jewish-Arab clashes? Town spokesman explains

The town surrounded by security forces tells what happened over Shabbat and denounces the army's decision to check cars leaving the town.

Eli Rosenbaum, the spokesman for the town of Ateret, tells Israel National News about the events of the weekend that took place in the town, events that began on Thursday evening and reached their peak during the past Saturday and resulted in condemnation from the heads of the security establishment.

"On Thursday, the Arabs started rioting on Route 465, which crosses the Binyamin region from east to west. There was stone throwing, Molotov cocktails used, and tires burned, and the army contained the incident," says Rosenbaum. The incident escalated until "at ten o'clock at night the road was blocked for three hours. Those who came from the west stopped in Neve Tsuf, the neighboring town until the road was opened because the army did not respond harshly. Instead of a heavy hand, they responded with rubber bullets and stun grenades, they came with a small force that was unable to repel a large number of people, and this was the result.”

"Thank God, there were no casualties, but many vehicles were hit by bottles, stones, and iron rods," says Rosenbaum, noting that the village of Umm Safa from which the rioters left is "a village that knows how to throw stones, but it has usually been quiet in recent times."

According to Rosenbaum, the cause of the entire incident, according to the Arabs of the village, was "four Jewish cattle herders who came to a farm located two kilometers west of the village. They grazed in the valley below the village, not on private lands.”

On Friday, the disturbances continued, but the army was much more prepared and reacted significantly and much more strongly. "On Saturday at noon, the muezzin called the residents to go out and slaughter the Jews. We have people who understand what he is saying. They also wrote it on the Jewish networks. At noon on Saturday, about forty Arabs came out of the village to attack those cattle herders with sticks, iron rods, and stones. The shepherds called out a few guys who arrived at the scene and repelled the attack, but it happened again, and later on, the shepherds call friends from the Hilltop Youth who came and repelled the next attack by the Arab rioters. They didn't stop at repelling the attack and managed to enter the village, and they set fire to two houses and several cars there."

"We condemn this thing. We are sure that it is forbidden halachically (according to Jewish law) and morally and also harms the security and image of the town," Rosenbaum points out, adding that "in the end, this is what happened, and after they do this thing, they fled to Ateret and hid in different places in the town. On Saturday night, army forces arrived with the ISA, led by the Brigadier General. They went in to look for these guys, and this is a point that made us very angry because the same Brigadier General that reacted weakly and slowly to the attacks for three days, suddenly when Jews respond, that is serious and forbidden, all the forces arrive, and the Brigadier General himself is checking car after car personally to check that they didn't run away. He did it personally.”

"Mr. Brigadier General, we love you and cherish you, but if you had acted as aggressively and searched for the terrorists in Umm Safa, this whole incident would not have happened," says Rosenbaum, adding that "since the massacre at Eli Junction, there have been over 150 terrorist attacks in the Binyamin region. Why search for these few guys? What they did is very serious, but that's why there are police to deal with it."

"Later, the police tried to tow away the vehicles of those Hilltop Youth. We blocked the gate of the settlement to prevent the towing of the vehicles as a sign of protest and not because we support the act. It was a protest that our blood was spilled like water, and it doesn't bother anyone, and when Jews do something, everyone comes running. We are not ready to accept this reality. We all serve in the army, and we are not ready to accept this indifference in the face of this bloodshed.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/373247