A Tale of Two Border Patrol Policemen and Seven Settlers

A Tale of Two Border Patrol Policemen and Seven Settlers
Nadia Matar, Women in Green


Yesterday the Arutz 7 web site had a film in which we see two Border Patrol policemen attacking a Jewish demonstrator from the lovers of Eretz Israel camp and sadistically abusing him. According to most of the responses to the report, the public was shocked by the Border Patrol violence. I, however, am no longer surprised by any police violence. I was shocked by something that, in my humble opinion, is more serious: by the inaction and lack of response by the seven Jews, settlers, who stood by, still to what was happening, and did not step in. I must point out that they did, politely, express their protest: "Hey, stop abusing him," "What's going on here," "Enough," but they did not physically intervene.

This scene reminds me of the old sad joke about the eight Jews who are walking around in Europe and two non-Jews come towards them. One Jew asks the others: "Oy vey, what will we do? We are eight and they are two! Let's run away!"

I want to ask the young men who are seen in the film, who were present during the sadistic abuse of their friends: Master of the Universe! In the film you look at least 18 years old. Strong youth, who might even have undergone some krav maga (self-defense) training. Why didn't you defend your friend? According to the film, you could easily have overpowered the two Border Patrol policemen, and taken their hands off your friend's face, so they would at least have stopped choking him! I know that they filled all your heads not to raise a hand against a policeman or soldier, but they meant to say that we should not initiate violence. Here, this was a case of self-defense, against an attack. Anyone who defends himself against police violence, or any other kind of violence, is not violent, but is simply defending himself or his fellow. Obviously, it is important to film and document the event, so that the police will not be able to concoct a fake case of "assaulting a police officer."

I wouldn't have made anything of this, if such scenarios didn't repeat themselves over and over again. The picture presented by the film reminds me of the fury I felt when I watched a recording of the events of Amona, in which we see a policeman enter a room and bring down his club again, again, and yet again on dozens of the people sitting on the floor in the room. My initial anger was naturally directed against the policeman, but after a few seconds I said to myself: Master of the Universe! How is it that, of the dozens of young men in the room, a few didn't get up, to take the club away from the policeman's hands! And if the reports are correct, that all the young folks there were handcuffed, to prove their being nonviolent, then they should have gotten up on their feet and used their feet until the policeman stopped raining down blows on them. This isn't violence, this is self-defense.

The time has come to look at the conduct of our public in light of the attacks against us. The late Adir Zik always said that a considerable part of our public is sick with the "second-rate" disease. That is, it suffers from feelings of inferiority to the secular-leftist public. Others would say that we learn baseless love too extremely, so that we have lost the ability to be angry with those who do us injustice. Yet others will say that the genes of the galut (exile) are still embedded within us. Whatever the reason, the time has come to stop the policy of turning the other cheek. No more hugging a soldier or policemen who come to destroy our home, and we won't let a violent policeman carry out his designs without defending ourselves.

Does this mean that we have to be violent? Should we act like our ultra-Orthodox brothers? Many have said that if we had struggled over every house in Gush Katif like the ultra-Orthodox behaved this week after the mother's arrest, we would still be in Gush Katif. Possibly. But what can we do ... our public isn't capable of that, and perhaps that's all for the best.

Our strength lies elsewhere: the way for our camp to stop the expulsion decrees is:

(1) Nonparticipation by our soldiers in the destruction mission, certainly not in the innermost circle, but not even in the outermost one. The mission of destroying the outposts cannot be implemented without the army. Thank God, there are tens of thousands of young men from our camp in the army. All of us, today, and not tomorrow, must pick up a telephone and call our soldier sons and make it clear to them that we expect them to remain loyal to their mission, namely, the defense of the people and the land, and not, Heaven forbid, participation in the destruction of settlements and the handing over of portions of the homeland to the Arab enemy.

(2) A nonviolent, but mass, struggle: our camp numbers hundreds of thousands of Jews loyal to Eretz Israel who understand that the destruction of 23 outposts is the first phase of the destruction of the entire settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria. If and when we will have to defend the outposts, it must be clear to us all that we are not going to work, we are not going to study in the yeshivah or the girls' mikhlalah (seminary), but we are taking to the streets and going to the outposts in our masses, sitting in on the main roads and preventing the security forces from reaching their target. If necessary, we will remain a day, two days, or even a week. This isn't a demonstration. This is a battle, a battle for the private and national home.

These two principles would have saved Gush Katif and northern Samaria. Unfortunately, they were not put into practice, because of rabbis who opposed refusing orders and leaders who organized bombastic two-hour demonstrations at the Western Wall and in Malkhei Yisrael Square, but were incapable of leading a true struggle.

Now is the time to correct the mistakes that were made in 2005. This is even more actual and urgent today, when we were informed of the preparations by the IDF and the Border Patrol for the destruction of 23 outposts. For the young people who were seen in the film and all other youth, the time has come to participate in courses in krav maga and self-defense. Not in order to be violent, Heaven forbid, but for the reasons of self-defense, mutual responsibility, and the defense of Eretz Israel.


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