Israel Matzav: 'Settler' goes along on Leftist condolence visit to Arab village

Monday, August 03, 2015

'Settler' goes along on Leftist condolence visit to Arab village

A revenant in his 20's named Yonadav Tapuchi went along on a Leftist-sponsored visit to the site of the two arson attacks in the village of Duma last week. (You can see a post about a similar visit here). Tapuchi said that he went along on the trip to show that not everyone on the Right agrees with last week's actions (which are still presumed to have been carried out by a Jew from the Right), and that although he is a supporter of Jewish settlement of the entire land in Israel, some actions are simply beyond the pale.

For those of you who read Hebrew, you can find his original thoughts here (it's accessible). For those who do not, Hillel Fendel has translated most of them into English.

"I had difficult feelings after my trip," Yonadav wrote, "which can be divided into three groups. First, there is no doubt that this was a shocking crime. It is simply terrible to wake up in the middle of the night to find your house and family going up in flames, to escape by the skin of your teeth, and then to find that you have lost a son. ...My condolences to the family; may they know no more pain."

"The second area concerns the anthropological experience I had on the bus filled with veteran left-wing activists from Tel Aviv – a horrific scene of hatred-filled talk: hatred of settlers, hatred of the religious, and especially of haredim; hatred of the State of Israel; and explanations why it was a moral imperative to leave and move to another country.

"When we arrived at the village, we were surrounded by Arab photographers. We were informed that the original plan had been changed, and that before visiting the actual mourning family, we would first see the burnt houses. Thus, a bunch of Jews with their heads held low were photographed near and in the burnt houses and the Hebrew graffiti there. A representative of the family and the village then gave a short speech ('the settlers should expect the worst!,' he warned). We were then told that actually, the village is quite up in arms, and that it would not be convenient for us to actually comfort the mourning family, and that we had better leave fast.

"I and others felt that this whole thing was a media trick to get the 'Yahud' [Arabic for 'the Jews' – ed.] to take part in humiliating set of photos near the buildings, and that they had never planned to allow us to come in actual contact with the family."

The third set of impressions that Yonadav Tapuchi came away with concerned the suspicious nature of the alleged arson. He did not mention that there have been reports of an ongoing, 18-year feud between two clans in Duma that might be related to the murderous arson. In addition, one of the two graffiti messages – the single word nekamah, meaning "revenge" – has calligraphic elements that raise the suspicion that it was actually sprayed by an Arab.

There was actually a report up in Hebrew on rotter.net yesterday that claimed that suspects had been arrested in connection with the arson, and that they were Arabs. But when I clicked on the link from Twitter, the post had been removed. It is not unheard of in this country for a report like that to be censored by the military censor for some period of time. In other words, the report could still be true.

And that's not the only thing that's suspicious.

"According to the Duma version, the attackers burnt one house, then saw that it was empty, and so they went to set fire to the next house. The second house is enclosed by a fence, and the windows are covered by a dense lattice; a firebomb cannot be hurled through the windows, and in any event it is very hard to reach the windows behind the fence. The arsonists had to go around the house, enter the yard, and place the firebombs through the lattice. According to the Duma version, the attackers entered the house, stood over the parents and did not let them leave until the flames engulfed the house. Only then did the arsonists run away from the village.

"I can only say that when the arsonists are ultimately caught, we will get to hear a fascinating story of why they chose to navigate their way all the way into the middle of the village, and how they had time to set a house on fire, wait to find that it was empty, then walk around and enter another house and set it on fire, wait with the parents, spray graffiti in two places – including with a little design of a crown! – and then run away through the middle of the village with all the townspeople surely already up and on their feet seeing the flames and hearing the family's cries. Something here is very fishy…"

Hmmm.

Labels: arson, Palestinians, revenants, terrorism