Ha’aretz reports:
Some 40 yeshiva students from a West Bank settlement attacked a group of eight Palestinian laborers on Thursday morning, wounding at least five of them.Jewish students in Nahliel threw stones at the Palestinians and attacked them with clubs, who were contracted to work in the West Bank settlement located west of Ramallah.The wounded Palestinians, one of them in serious condition, were evacuated to a Ramallah hospital.Police are investigating the attack.
If this is true (and given the recent demonization of residents of the disputed territories, I cannot be sure), then I suggest these students focus more on their Torah studies. They seem to be rather weak on the whole “treating your fellow person as you would like to be treated” concept.
Deliberately attacking PLO Arabs (or indeed anyone) doing nothing more than working is morally reprehensible. If they were, say planting a bomb, then my position would be different. However, there is no indication of this from the report.
Besides the moral implications, these students are undermining Israel. They are not only playing in to the hands of opponents of residents of the disputed territories (who would like to portray all the residents as violent thugs), but also giving the PLO Arabs an opportunity to claim that ‘settlements’ are a huge problem (when, in reality, I don’t believe they are).
