Unbelievable attempt to stab a member of Rabbis for Human Rights, who was lucky not to be severely injured. The Israeli army didn’t shoot the terrorist settler dead. They blamed it on leftwingers and anarchists!
WATCH: Jewish extremist tries to stab ‘rabbi for human rights’
By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man
|Published October 23, 2015
Volunteers and activists were accompanying Palestinian
olive harvesters in the West Bank to help protect them from settler
attacks.
A right-wing Jewish extremist threw stones at attempted to stab
president of Rabbis for Human Rights, Arik Asherman, following an olive
harvest coordinated with the Israeli army on Friday. Nobody was
significantly injured in the incident.
Rabbi Asherman and a group of Israeli and international activists
arrived to accompany Palestinian farmers to their privately owned olive
orchard, located near the illegal Israeli outpost of Gideonim, which is
an offshoot of the Itamar settlement.
 |
| British National Injured by Settlers when Protecting Olive Groves |
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Following the harvest, the Palestinian farmers noticed suspected
Israeli settlers stealing olives and another setting fire to the
hillside. Rabbi Asherman said that because firefighters did not arrive
quickly, he went to try and put out the fire himself.
 |
| US consular vehicle with marks of rock thrown by settlers |
At that point, the masked man who set the fire, ostensibly a settler
from the nearby outpost, tried to prevent Rabbi Asherman from reaching
the site of the blaze, threw stones at him and pulled out a knife and
repeatedly swung it toward him. The man kicked and punched Asherman.
Rabbi Asherman and other activists remained at the scene in order to
direct the army and police toward the attacker, he said in a statement,
but it took police 30 minutes to arrive. At that point the attacker had
already fled.
 |
| An illegal outpost demolished by army |
Settlers inc. Meir Ettinger are captured by Palestinians trying to carry out a ‘price tag’ attack
Rabbis for Human Rights often accompanies Palestinian farmers in order to help protect them from settler attacks.
 |
| Car damaged by settlers |
The organization’s website explains: “Our presence in the groves with
the farmers helps keep them safe, as extremists are far less likely to
cause problems when they know Israelis and internationals are present.”
A police spokesperson responded to the attack on Friday by blaming
the incident on a provocation by “left-wing activists and anarchists.”
She said officers were searching the area for the suspect.
 |
| Meir Ettinger and 7 settlers escorted out of Palestinian village after having tried to engage in ‘price tag’ attack. They could have been killed by villagers. Ettinger is under administrative detention suspected of having committed arson at the Dawabshe home in Duma which killed 3 people including an 18 month baby |
Between 2005 and 2014, according to human rights group Yesh Din,
only four out of the 246 criminal complaints of damage to olive trees
that it monitored resulted in indictments. In total, only 7.4 percent of
West Bank Israeli police investigations into complaints from
Palestinian victims of offenses committed against them or their property
by Israeli civilians result in indictments, according to the organization.
 |
| Graffitti daubed on Dawabshe home which was set ablaze |
“From the moment the olive harvest begins, we witness a series of
serious incidents involving attacks on harvesters and damage to trees,”
Noa Cohen of Yesh Din’s research department stated last year.
“This
recurring phenomenon is a result of failure to enforce the law.”
The incident on Friday was far from the first time Rabbis for Human Rights and the Palestinians they accompany have come under settler attack.
For an in-depth look at Israeli settler violence and the authorities’
inability to cope with it, I suggest reading Larry Derfner’s feature, “Settler violence: It comes with the territory.”
VIDEO: Right wing activist attempts to stab human rights activist in West Bank
A video of the attack, which occurred on a brown rocky hillside, was posted on YouTube and sent to the media.
It showed a masked man with a rock in his left hand pushing Ascherman down the hill.
The
man then drew a knife out of his back right pocket and pulled it on
Ascherman as he forced him backwards down the hill a bit before running
after a Belgian journalist.
When Ascherman went to help the
Belgian journalist, the masked man turned on him again and the
journalist was able to get away safely.
The two men continued to
tussle, with the masked man kicking Ascherman several times and swinging
the knife, without actually stabbing him.
Ascherman at one point
was able to grab hold of his leg as the masked man swung and in return,
the man briefly put his arm around Ascherman’s neck in a headlock,
before running away up the hill.
Ascherman told The Jerusalem
Post that he had arrived with a group of left-wing activists to help
Palestinians harvest olives down the hill from an outpost that is close
to the settlement of Itamar, which is located in the Samaria region of
the West Bank.
The olive harvest was coordinated with security forces, who asked the farmers to stop work as of 12:30 p.m., he said.
Ascherman
charged that after the security forces left, people whom he presumed to
be settlers entered the Palestinian groves. They stole olives and
equipment as well as lit some of the trees on fire.
He went up to
the grove with a Belgian journalist to see if they could help put out
the fire, when the masked man attacked them, Ascherman said.
“He
pulled a knife on me and I started to move backward on a steep hill. I
lost my footing a bit. At that point I tried to grab his arm and his
left. He made a motion as if he was going to stab me, but then he ran
away.”
A Judea and Samaria spokesman said that the incident
happened after an altercation between left and right wing activists. The
National Crimes Unit has opened an investigation into the matter, he
said.
“We take violent incidents like this very seriously and have zero tolerance for law breakers,” the spokesman said.
An earlier statement, however, referred to Ascherman’s group as “anarchists” and “provocateurs” whose actions led to the attack.
Ascherman said that such accusations were insulting.