'Israel's Holocaust trustee blasts Hebron settlers
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A senior official of Israel's central Holocaust
memorial on Saturday assailed Jewish settlers who harass Palestinians
in a tinderbox West Bank city, saying the abuse recalled the anti-
Semitism of 1930s Europe.
The fierce attack by Yosef Lapid, chairman of Yad Vashem's advisory
council, was prompted by Israeli television footage showing a Hebron
settler woman hissing "whore" at a Palestinian neighbor and settler
children lobbing rocks at Arab homes.
The spectacle stirred outrage in the Jewish state, where many view
the settlers as opposing coexistence with a future Palestinian state
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Lapid, a Holocaust survivor who lost his father to the Nazi genocide,
said in a weekly commentary on Israel Radio that the acts of some
Hebron settlers reminded him of persecution endured by Jews in his
native Yugoslavia on the eve of World War Two.
"It was not crematoria or pogroms that made our life in the diaspora
bitter before they began to kill us, but persecution, harassment,
stone-throwing, damage to livelihood, intimidation, spitting and
scorn," Lapid said, reiterating remarks made earlier this week in
Israel's Maariv newspaper .
"I was afraid to go to school, because of the little anti-Semites who
used to lay in ambush on the way and beat us up. How is that
different from a Palestinian child in Hebron?"
Hebron has been a frequent flashpoint of more than six years of
Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Some 400 settlers live there, under
heavy Israeli military guard, among 150,000 Palestinians.
"The man is obviously a very, very sick person, to compare the Jews
in Hebron to barbarians and compare us to the Nazis," David Wilder, a
spokesman for the settlers in Hebron, said in response to Lapid.
Another community spokesman, Noam Arnon, played down the televised
harassments as "fringe incidents," and told Israel Radio: "In six
years, 37 Jews have been murdered in Hebron, and now they're
preoccupied with curses?"
CRACKDOWN OR COMPLACENCY?
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered a cabinet-level probe last
week into Palestinian allegations that abuse by Hebron settlers is
commonplace and routinely ignored by Israel.
Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said he hoped for an Israeli
crackdown against the settler "provocateurs", but Palestinian
officials called for comprehensive action.
"If they are serious about coexistence, the Israelis must take
practical steps on the hundreds of daily violations against
Palestinians in the old city," Hebron Governor Arif Jabari said.
Jabari's apparent pessimism was shared by Lapid, a former Israeli
justice minister.
"We Jewish citizens of Israel wave a reprimanding finger at most," he
said. "Worse still, I tolerated this silently as justice minister too."
The World Court has branded the settlements illegal but many Jews
claim a biblical birthright to the West Bank, which Israel captured
from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, a move
billed as breaking the diplomatic deadlock with the Palestinians.
The rise since of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group whose charter
calls for the Jewish state's destruction, and a recent war against
Hizbollah guerillas in Lebanon has hardened the resolve of Israeli
rightists against ever leaving the West Bank.
Lapid said while there was no comparing the Holocaust, in which 6
million Jews died, with Palestinian suffering from Israel's policies,
this did not mean Israelis could not be culpable.
"It is inconceivable for the memory of Auschwitz to warrant ignoring
the fact that there are Jews among us who behave today toward
Palestinians just like German, Hungarian, Polish and other anti-
Semites behaved toward Jews," he said.
(Additional reporting by Haitham Tamimi in Hebron and Allyn Fisher-
Ilan in Jerusalem)
C Reuters 2007. '
memorial on Saturday assailed Jewish settlers who harass Palestinians
in a tinderbox West Bank city, saying the abuse recalled the anti-
Semitism of 1930s Europe.
The fierce attack by Yosef Lapid, chairman of Yad Vashem's advisory
council, was prompted by Israeli television footage showing a Hebron
settler woman hissing "whore" at a Palestinian neighbor and settler
children lobbing rocks at Arab homes.
The spectacle stirred outrage in the Jewish state, where many view
the settlers as opposing coexistence with a future Palestinian state
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Lapid, a Holocaust survivor who lost his father to the Nazi genocide,
said in a weekly commentary on Israel Radio that the acts of some
Hebron settlers reminded him of persecution endured by Jews in his
native Yugoslavia on the eve of World War Two.
"It was not crematoria or pogroms that made our life in the diaspora
bitter before they began to kill us, but persecution, harassment,
stone-throwing, damage to livelihood, intimidation, spitting and
scorn," Lapid said, reiterating remarks made earlier this week in
Israel's Maariv newspaper .
"I was afraid to go to school, because of the little anti-Semites who
used to lay in ambush on the way and beat us up. How is that
different from a Palestinian child in Hebron?"
Hebron has been a frequent flashpoint of more than six years of
Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Some 400 settlers live there, under
heavy Israeli military guard, among 150,000 Palestinians.
"The man is obviously a very, very sick person, to compare the Jews
in Hebron to barbarians and compare us to the Nazis," David Wilder, a
spokesman for the settlers in Hebron, said in response to Lapid.
Another community spokesman, Noam Arnon, played down the televised
harassments as "fringe incidents," and told Israel Radio: "In six
years, 37 Jews have been murdered in Hebron, and now they're
preoccupied with curses?"
CRACKDOWN OR COMPLACENCY?
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered a cabinet-level probe last
week into Palestinian allegations that abuse by Hebron settlers is
commonplace and routinely ignored by Israel.
Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said he hoped for an Israeli
crackdown against the settler "provocateurs", but Palestinian
officials called for comprehensive action.
"If they are serious about coexistence, the Israelis must take
practical steps on the hundreds of daily violations against
Palestinians in the old city," Hebron Governor Arif Jabari said.
Jabari's apparent pessimism was shared by Lapid, a former Israeli
justice minister.
"We Jewish citizens of Israel wave a reprimanding finger at most," he
said. "Worse still, I tolerated this silently as justice minister too."
The World Court has branded the settlements illegal but many Jews
claim a biblical birthright to the West Bank, which Israel captured
from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, a move
billed as breaking the diplomatic deadlock with the Palestinians.
The rise since of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist group whose charter
calls for the Jewish state's destruction, and a recent war against
Hizbollah guerillas in Lebanon has hardened the resolve of Israeli
rightists against ever leaving the West Bank.
Lapid said while there was no comparing the Holocaust, in which 6
million Jews died, with Palestinian suffering from Israel's policies,
this did not mean Israelis could not be culpable.
"It is inconceivable for the memory of Auschwitz to warrant ignoring
the fact that there are Jews among us who behave today toward
Palestinians just like German, Hungarian, Polish and other anti-
Semites behaved toward Jews," he said.
(Additional reporting by Haitham Tamimi in Hebron and Allyn Fisher-
Ilan in Jerusalem)
C Reuters 2007. '
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