Saturday, February 4, 2012

The silence of the lambs


The silence of the lambs


Emily Amrousi

We see them hitchhiking on the side of the roads. A decade ago they could not even make up a minyan (10 people) – today they are thousands. They have their own yeshivas, their own all-girl religious schools and their own secret stores where they purchase those large woolen kippas. The “Tanzim” (a reference to the Palestinian militia) we used to call them when we would run into one or two of these hilltop youth at Tapuah Junction (An important checkpoint near the southern entrance to Nablus). We found it difficult to understand their style, the rage in their eyes. Today, they are the ones who are calling us names.
Ariel, 17, came to Yisa Bracha (an outpost near Mitzpe Jericho in southern Judea) to protest its planned evacuation. He got hit by a policeman’s club, right in the face, and was immediately taken to an emergency room. The doctor asked him if he belonged to the hilltop youth. Because if so, said the doctor, it was his problem.
When I heard this story, I made some mental notes: Firstly, even if he was a hardened criminal, it was not the doctor’s job to offer an opinion on the matter, only to provide medical care. Secondly, Ariel does not even belong to the hilltop youth - he is a good boy from Talmon (a community east of Modiin). Thirdly, the doctor’s succinct statement expressed what we all think. You’re a Hilltop? You deserve it.
Settlers are making considerable efforts to set themselves apart from the hilltop youth. As we water our well-groomed gardens, we – we! - look at them as though they were unwanted weeds. When they are dragged on the ground and taken away we look at the sky and hum. When worse things are done to them than just being evacuated, we ignore it.
Six years after the evacuation of Amona, where the good and beautiful religious Zionism was beaten down, we no longer get worked up over every outpost evacuation. The demolition of Mitzpeh Avihai two weeks ago was like a speck of dust in our collective eye. After all, these were not the children of rabbis from Migron or the good kids from Givat Assaf. When border policemen, at least according to testimonies, poured gasoline on new wooden beams at one of the outposts and lit them on fire in order to stop the outpost from being rebuilt, it was barely mentioned in an Arutz Sheva news flash.
We didn’t cry out when young children and babies were pulled out of their beds at 2 a.m., in the freezing cold, without prior notice. We didn’t make a fuss when they were treated criminally. We kept silent when they told us their property had been vandalized. Maybe we didn’t believe them a little.
This week, the seven families evacuated from Mitzpeh Avihai discovered that the rubble of their former homes, along with all of their belongings, had been taken to a garbage dump site in the South Hebron Hills area. Those who went searching for their things were met with dozens of Palestinian looters who asked if another shipment was on the way. I couldn’t believe this story, until I saw video footage. I saw toys, solar panels, an iron, a kid’s chair, a dresser, windows – all rolling out from inside the garbage truck. The driver of the truck saw a nice sink and grabbed it for himself. Let’s assume there was justification for the state to confiscate these private belongings – what about the established procedure for depositing and seizing property?
The state decided that Shlomit and Yaki’s home, and the home of Noga and Avraham, were garbage.
The settlers' silence, and I’m not saying that this is by any means comparable, is reminiscent of what Martin Niemöller said in 1946: “First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak out because I was Protestant. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Indeed, darkness is here.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1317

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