Within an hour of arriving at the Palestinian hamlet of Susiya, the local settlers decided to make an unwelcome appearance on the farmers’ land, shattering the calm of dusk as the sun set over the Judean hills. The intruders drove their sheep all the way to the edge of the Palestinians’ encampment, encouraging their animals to gorge themselves on the sparse flora belonging to their neighbours’ flocks.
Watching a crime take place is never pleasant for onlookers, but the experience is made infinitely worse when there is no recourse whatsoever to ameliorate the situation. In more tolerant and equitable societies, witnesses can pick up the phone and call the authorities, in the hope and expectation that the police will intervene on behalf of the victim and right the wrong being committed. But when the very security forces meant to deal out justice are standing alongside the criminals and providing armed cover for their actions, the sense of disbelief and disaffection with the status quo is off the scale.
In this case, the two settlers were aided and abetted by a pair of M16-toting Israel Defence Force guards, who stood menacingly in position to keep the distraught Palestinian farmers at bay; the hopeless cries of opposition by the landowners falling on deaf ears, the stony-faced soldiers gazed on impassively and let the settlers brazenly steal the crops from under their noses. Neither the farmers, their families, the NGO workers staying with them nor our group of eight visiting observers could do a thing to prevent the theft – and the micro-story on this remote patch of scrubland embodies the macro situation across the region as a whole.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/17/israel-settlers-army-susiya
