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Last update - 21:13 04/04/2008 A little tale about donkeys By Boaz Kitain Tags: Israel, settlers, hebron On Purim, I accompanied friends who set out to visit acquaintances in the Land of Israel, beyond the border of the state. We drove to the southern Hebron Hills, a beautiful area during this season despite the winter's drought and we arrived, via a bumpy road, at a modest pioneer-style building. We were greeted by an amiable family. The men had gone to pray and we spoke with the women, among them two who had completed or were completing degrees in education and social work. The soaring homes of the settlement of Carmel, near which we sat, afford a feeling of power and optimism to the chosen people and quite a lot of frustration to those who were not chosen. Our hosts cannot receive permits to build on their land, a connection to the nearby electricity pylon or a connection to running water. All of this is because the Jewish settlement happens to have been built just a few meters away from their lands, which they own legally. As we talked and gazed at the impressive landscape of the edge of the desert, it emerged that our hosts were in big trouble: Their two donkeys had crossed the few meters to the road that links the settlement to its expansion. If they dare approach, they can expect beatings and trouble with the police. Advertisement I immediately offered to save the situation; after all, I belong to the lords of the land and no one will get hurt. We hastened to restore the donkeys (maybe she-asses) to their owners and we thought that in so doing we had prevented an unpleasant local incident. The members of our people from the settlement thought otherwise. The local security forces were called immediately, and they arrived in an all-terrain vehicle and a patrol truck belonging to the security coordinator. Accompanying them were a female soldier on patrol as well as the sector company commander and his people, and men, women and children from Carmel. Now we feared that because of the crowd and the harsh words being banded around, something bad would happen to our hosts. We therefore headed back confidently to our forces in order to bring peace and reconciliation. We were immediately rewarded with a vivid experience of baseless hatred. The youngster on the ATV announced that next time he would shoot anyone who gets near the place, even donkeys. The security coordinator, an adult man with a beard, screamed: "Provocation!" And he didn't listen to our explanations that the opposite was the case; we had indeed acted to prevent any provocation. Very quickly a police Jeep arrived and a policeman confiscated our identity cards. Because a complaint against us for trespassing had been filed. How is that possible, we asked, you can see that there is no boundary here to trespass, no fence and no sign. And anyway, even if we had entered the settlement, in the land of Israel this does not constitute trespassing, as everyone knows. But the complaint had already reached the highest levels, and the settlers' complaint and the district commander's order can't be changed. Youngsters from Carmel explained to me that we mustn't make any concessions to "them"; that it begins with a donkey and ends with a massacre like in Hebron. I told them about my family - a grandfather and a grandmother, an uncle and an aunt, who were miraculously rescued from that massacre thanks to Arab neighbors. After that, the children of the place received a here-and-now education from a respectable-looking adult man, who hurled insults dripping with baseless hatred at us and forbade them to talk to us. Arella, my partner from Kibbutz Shoval, had to go back to care for a family whose son, a former naval commando fighter, is ill with cancer. But all of our pleas were to no avail. We were taken away for interrogation at the Kiryat Arba police station. Leading the convoy was the security coordinator, behind him the police Jeep with me inside, accompanied by three policemen and behind us the rest of the "suspects." After more than an hour of waiting the investigator apologized to us and said that although there had been no reason for bringing us in for questioning, they wanted to protect us from the settlers. (Is that the reason they kept us there for a very long time and didn't release us at once? I wonder.) I had wanted to talk with Simcha, the security coordinator, but he had disappeared. It turns out that he had been overcome by embarrassment when, behind my back, my son Amit said to him: Give yourself a medal for having saved the homeland from a bereaved father and good Jews who tried to rescue donkeys from an unnecessary incident. In the evening, our hosts phoned and related that a drunken settler had rampaged on their land, but other settlers had extricated him from there even before the police arrived. I assume that we will be going back there in order to try to help with the little we can, and also perhaps to reduce the flames of baseless hatred among our people. For what alternative have we? Perhaps if we do this with all our souls, with all our hearts and with all our might, with our religious friends and our friends who are not religious, we will succeed in preventing the third destruction. The author is the father of Tom Kitain, an IDF soldier killed in the 1997 helicopter disaster, an activist in the Forum of Bereaved Israeli-Palestinian Families and a member of the Neveh Shalom Jewish-Arab community. Bookmark to del.icio.us   My gay family Caryn Aviv shares her personal experience as a gay Jewish co-parent. Filmed in battle Second Lebanon War film centers on one man's choice to keep his troop out of harm's way.   1.   How we support Israel 21:36  |  davidk 04/04/08   2.   Interesting there is no pro-settler postings 03:02  |  spyguy 05/04/08   3.   Settlers 04:11  |  Taussig 05/04/08   4.   Settlers 04:29  |  Taussig 05/04/08   5.   SUPPORTERS OF TERRORISTS ARE TERRORISTS THEMSELVES!!! 05:16  |  Orit BenAmi 05/04/08   6.   Pro settlement - but, 00:05  |  Elihu 06/04/08   7.   There was an almost identical story by Amos Oz or someone like 00:53  |  Genuine Tosefta 07/04/08

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