The articles YNET: "MK Tibi: Settlers two-legged animals" & AFP: "Violence flares in West Bank after attack on Jewish settlement" come after the Ha'aretz article
9/13/08
Ha'aretz: "Peace Now: Revoke gun licenses of settlers who attacked Palestinians"
By Yoav Stern and Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondents
Peace Now on Saturday called for the confiscation of the gun licenses of settlers who opened fire on Palestinian villagers in the West Bank Saturday, hours after settlers went on a rampage in response to the stabbing of a 9-year-old settler in the outpost of Shalhevet by a Palestinian infiltrator early Saturday.
The ensuing clashes left at least eight Palestinians wounded, two of them moderately.
"The settlers are not missing any opportunity to hurt Palestinians and threaten human life," Peace Now General Secretary Yariv Oppenheimer said.
MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am-Ta'al) blamed the Israel Defense Forces for the violence, saying that security forces are allowing the violence to break out.
"The settlers are acting as vigilantes, right in front of the closed eyes of the IDF," Tibi said.
MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) harshly criticized the violence in the West Bank, and called for Defense Minister Ehud Barak to use stiff measures to counter settler violence.
Fellow Meretz MK Yossi Beilin also called for action, saying police need to strictly probe these incidents and
ensure that those responsible will be behind bars.
YNET: "MK Tibi: Settlers two-legged animals"
Leftist politicians slam West Bank rampage; settler leader: Leftists ignoring attack on Jewish boy
Ynet reporters
Leftist Knesset members say they are outraged by settler riots and army inaction at a West Bank village Saturday in
the wake of the stabbing of a Jewish boy by a Palestinian. Meanwhile, the settlers are infuriated with the leftist
disregard for the stabbing attack.
Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi referred to the settlers as "two-legged animals" following the riots.
"The rampaging settlers are abusing innocent Palestinians while IDF officers turn a blind eye," he said. "The army
chose to impose a siege on the two Palestinian villages that have been victimized."
Meanwhile, Knesset Member Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) urged Defense Minister Ehud Barak to act sternly against the
"violent settlers who are rioting and hurting Palestinians as if they are allowed to do whatever they want."
"It's impossible to have a situation whereby the army is doing nothing while this is going on," she said. "The time
has come to end the policy of inaction vis-…-vis the settlers."
The Peace Now movement called on Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter to revoke the gun licenses of the settlers
who reportedly opened fire during the riots.
"The settlers do not miss any opportunity to hurt Palestinians and endanger human life," Peace Now Secretary
General Yariv Oppenheimer said.
However, Yesha Council Chairman Danny Dayan said Saturday that "Beilin, Tibi, and Gal-On are dancing on the blood
of a wounded 9-year-old Israeli child in order to advance their political agenda."
"Violence of any kind is wrong, but their complete disregard to the attempt to murder a Jewish child in Yitzhar
proves that they are not people of peace, but rather, Palestinian propagandists."
Efrat Weiss, Amnon Meranda, and Sharon Roffe-Ophir contributed to the story
AFP: "Violence flares in West Bank after attack on Jewish settlement"
September 13, 2008
NABLUS, West Bank (AFP) - A Palestinian was shot dead by an Israeli army patrol and four others were wounded in clashes with Jewish settlers Saturday after an intruder stabbed a child in a West Bank settlement.
Israeli troops shot dead a 16-year-old boy after a group of Palestinians hurled rocks at an army patrol near the village of Tuqua in the southern West Bank, according to Palestinian medics.
The incident took place hours after a Palestinian stabbed a nine-year-old boy and burned down an abandoned house in the northern West Bank settlement of Yitzhar.
The boy was taken to hospital after being lightly wounded in the earl morning attack, an army spokesman said.
Shortly after the attack around 150 settlers from Yitzhar -- a bastion of extreme right-wing Israelis -- stormed into the nearby village of Asira al-Qibliya. The broke windows, threw rocks and fired shots in the air, local councillor Mohammed al-Shami said.
Medics in Nablus said they were treating four Palestinians for gunshot wounds and that one of them was in serious condition.
An Israeli army spokesman said the troops were present but had not fired any live rounds or rubber bullets during the clashes.
An Israeli officer said the Palestinian assailant had "stabbed the child five times and then thrown him from the balcony of a house."
Israeli troops launched a manhunt after the settlement attack, placing Asira al-Qibliya and two other villages under a strict curfew and also trying to prevent settlers from entering.
Human rights groups have long accused Israeli security forces of ignoring settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied territories.
"The policy of law enforcement bodies to date has been characterised by non-intervention in violence by settlers against Palestinians and their property," the Israeli rights group B'Tselem said in a report last month.
In the report published August 7 the group said it was investigating 12 cases of settler violence that had taken place in a single week, with several of the incidents reported near the settlements around Nablus.
Yariv Oppenheimer, spokesman for the Peace Now movement, called on Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter to revoke the gun permits of settlers engaging in violence.
"It is clear that the settlers entered the village to avenge themselves," he told AFP. If the police want to know who fired and to withdraw the gun permits of those responsible for this punitive operation, it has the technical means to do it."
The Israeli officer said the army had acted against "troublemakers who took the law into their own hands," and had detained two settlers and confiscated their weapons to run ballistic tests on them.
For his part, Arab Israeli MP Ahmed Tibi accused the "Israel police of covering up the abuses of settlers and of having done nothing to prevent the raid, as part of their policy of apartheid."
Hundreds of Palestinian security force personnel were deployed in Nablus last November at the start of a security plan intended to underpin US-backed peace talks relaunched the same month.
They have largely succeeded in reining in violence and organised crime, but Israeli officials say they have done little to combat Palestinian militant groups.
The Palestinians, meanwhile, have accused Israel of undermining the plan by carrying out regular nightly incursions and preventing Palestinian security forces from operating in certain areas.
And Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has repeatedly said Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are the main obstacle to the peace process, which has thus far made little visible progress.
At least 533 people have been killed since Palestinian-Israeli peace talks were formally relaunched in November, the vast majority of them Palestinians, according to an AFP tally.