This video, of Palestinian teens attacking Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, really made me sick.
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PHOTOS: Under the fresh white Jerusalem snow, hatred still bubbles
A week in photos: January 3-9
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miri
Wow, this could have been so different. I wish the black hatters would have tossed some back. It could have been fun, instead of morphing into some bullying act.
Evan Kent
Maybe they could’ve built a snowperson together…does the hate run so deep that even snow fall turns into a confrontation?
diamondleke
Oh, knocking hats, screaming abuse, and firing snowballs at close range. They should have joined in.
In case it didn’t get though, SARCASM.
Michael
Well done +972 for uploading this. Both sides of the ugly situation in Israel must be seen. This video is indeed sickening, and is a reflection of the total disdain for Jews many young Palestinians in Jerusalem feel. Very sorry times, indeed.
arlosoroff
yeh, oh those ol’ boring black hats, couldnt they just enjoy the fun, kicks and punches included.
Rafael
I saw no punches or kicks. Get over your self-pity.
dogpatch
I remember a video from back in the 90′s, before everything went to heck, of a group of settlement kids having a snowball fight with a group of Palestinian kids. It wasn’t combat, they were just being kids. A group of Israeli soldiers and PA police decided to put a stop to it and the kids, both sides, started throwing snowballs at them!
For that one moment everybody forgot about religion and lands and the rest and just had _fun_.
Joel
My ultra orthodox family lived in Jerusalem 150 years ago. The Arabs and Turks treated them even worse.
Richard Lightbown
Treated them worse than throwing snowballs: and you’re still holding a grudge about it 150 years on. Just imagine the IDF came on a nighttime visit, smashed up your house and took away your eldest child. Boy you could really have a ball with that Joel!
Joel
One of my ancestors from Jerusalem, a mother, was butchered by an Arab. There was no justice than, and I hold a grudge.
Other Jerusalem ancestors of mine were beaten and abused by Turks. I got over it.
Vicky
If people put half as much care into cultivating some kindness and understanding for people alive now as they do into nurturing 150-year-old grudges, they would maybe get on better. If murder in the Ottoman era is justification enough for your resentment and often callousness towards Palestinian people, I’m sure the young men in the video can dredge up a few happenings from their family histories that would excuse their snowballs. But what would be the point? All this achieves is to make people into bitter suspicious miserable arseportals.
Marcos
Vicky,
I am a little surprised by your remark, you are typically more empathetic and thoughtful. Joel is not the one you should have an issue with; it is the person who baited him. Shame on you.
Vicky
I don’t see how Joel was baited into his reply and I also didn’t feel any particular antagonism to him when I wrote my own. I did feel impatient generally, and if that surprises you I hope you never come across a comment where I get angry or unkind with someone. That happens. I am not some sort of performing peacenik seal who has to keep her composure balanced neatly on her nose at all times for the benefit of the audience, and I would spend my time in a constant haze of exhaustion if I started trying to live up to that.
Chemdat
Meanwhile, in Armon Hanatziv, a kilometer or two from where this occurred, Palestinian youth from the neighboring village were out walking, and like me, enjoying the snow. I am a Jew, but they greeted me happily. There is hope yet.
Noam
We were there on Thursday (Damascus Gate) with friends and saw (and felt) the exact same thing.
Not very nice to say the least.
Gama Xul
I was thinking this was going to be teens just having fun, and then I realized the only people having fun were the gang of Palestinian young adults. I really can’t grasp the concept of possessing such prejudice.
Cal
” I really can’t grasp the concept of possessing such prejudice.”>>>>
Surely you jest. You can’t understand the resentment of Israeli Jews by Palestines?
I am neither Jewish nor Palestine,just a mongrel American and if the Jews’s promised land in 1948 had been part of American and they had moved in and done the stealing of land and killing of natives here they’ve done in Palestine they would all have been wiped out and Israel would have been the shortest foot note in history.
Kiwi
“Surely you jest. You can’t understand the resentment of Israeli Jews by Palestines?”
Ah so context is suddenly important? The Arabs have a cause to resent Jews?
Well then guess what; it works the other way too. Jews too have cause to resent Arabs.
The only solution is for both sides to get over their resentments. Otherwise the past will be the future.
Oscar
“if the Jews’s promised land in 1948 had been part of American and they had moved in and done the stealing of land and killing of natives here they’ve done in Palestine they would all have been wiped out and Israel would have been the shortest foot note in history.”
Are you really this ignorant cal?
What you are really saying above is that if Native American Indians would claim back part of their land from you white European invaders, you would wipe them out?
I am sure people like you mean that but your actions would not be justifiable either morally or legally. Don’t worry though, it isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
For your information, the Jews too like the American Indians, are the descendants of the native Judeans. They returned to claim part of their ancient homeland mainly because belligerent people like you who persecuted Jews for too long. But like you, the Arabs, some of whom are natives too refused to share any of the land because they cared only about their own rights but not the rights of Jews. So they lost out.
Understand, Cal? If you do, then please stop your sanctimony. Otherwise we care as much about what you have to say as you care about what we have to say.
mike panzone
“the Arabs, some of whom are natives too refused to share any of the land because they cared only about their own rights but not the rights of Jews”
why would the arabs want to share land with zionists whose stated goal was recreate a jewish homeland on top of them?
true, native americans were the original inhabitants of america and they do have ancient ties. but if natives began gathering in texas in order to try and recreate a homeland based on native american religious beliefs, they would not be welcomed very warmly by the current residents.
luckily, most native americans realize that their ancient claims are just that…ancient…and the new reality is that the land is now the USA. one wonders how history would have turned out if the jews had accepted the same reality and accepted that uninhabited parcel of land in africa.
mike panzone
…i might add, that was then, this is now. palestinians today need to realize that 7 million israelis can’t be evicted and that their presence in the land between the sea and the jordan river is permanent.
Cathy
Mike, Did you really mean ‘from the sea to the Jordan River? You’re giving the Israeli’s all of the West Bank forever?
Oscar
“why would the arabs want to share land with zionists whose stated goal was recreate a jewish homeland on top of them?”
Not on top of them, besides them and together with them. There was room in Palestine for both Jews (the descendants of native inhabitants of the land) and Arabs. There still is.
Why? Because had they accepted the fact that Jews have and had rights too, not just Arabs, then they now would not be in the predicament that they find themselves in.
I find it amazing that some people only expect Jews to display empathy towards the “other” (the Arabs) but Arabs are not expected by the same people to empathise with “the other” (the Jews). And you agree with them, Mike, why is that?
mike panzone
that’s just my point. the zionists coming from europe had no right to the land their ancestors lost 2000 years ago. after WW1, only those jews,christians,and muslims living there at the time had any right to it. they could refuse any immigrants they chose, particularly those who had the arrogance to say that god promised them the place. (my heritage is British…but the Brits don’t have to take me back no matter what god has promised me). today’s palestinians who were kicked out in 48 and 67, on the other hand, are still alive and have a very real claim to their homeland in modern day israel, as do those jews who are now indigenous by virtue of their being born there. any arabs who want to kick out the israelis are just as wrong as the first zionists who thought they had a right to it.
Shaktimaan
Ah, but those early Zionists DID have the right to settle there. Or at least as much of a right as Arabs from the surrounding area had. You seem to be falling into the trap of using the current mideast quagmire and modern ethical standards as tools to judge historical events. The inhabitants of Palestine following WWI were in no way considered to be a nation, nor were they organized along geographical lines like modern nation-states are. There were many divisive groups split up by ethnicity and religion and within those groups there were numerous political factions with wildly divergent beliefs. The majority of people living there did not own the land they lived on and there is certainly no reason to insist that they should have been empowered with the right to determine immigration policy over uninhabited land simply because it was also within the arbitrarily drawn borders of British Palestine. The Zionists took great pains to gain legitimacy for their project and the reality is that every existing authority of the day supported them. If blame is to be laid anywhere it really belongs with the British, whose double dealings and dishonest negotiations paved the way for strained relationships between groups to ignite.
Shaktimaan
” one wonders how history would have turned out if the jews had accepted the same reality and accepted that uninhabited parcel of land in africa.”
This is a bit of propaganda that is still floating around. There never was an offer for uninhabited land in Uganda. Uganda was considered as a temporary solution to house fleeing refugees during times of increased pogroms. But it was never meant to be a replacement for the ultimate goal of a homeland in Palestine.
The area in question was never uninhabited either. Indigenous tribes living there were known to be hostile to outsiders and there was no historical or cultural claim to be made for moving there as there was with Palestine.
abdalla
wrong on so many levels but hate breeds hate and israeli policies bring this on
loed
cowards!!
With many, they think they are the hunters, soon the hunters will be hunted and will get what they deserve.
Oriol2
If I am not wrong, haredim don’t do military service, and some of them (NK and so) are even pro-Palestinian. So regardless of other conflicts haredim might create -segregated buses etc.- they don’t look like the natural victims of aggression by Arabs. Could someone with direct knowledge of the relationships between different communities explain it better to me? Is there any reason by which those Palestinian kids attack specifically haredim, do these Haredim visibly belong to the Zionist variety, or Arabic boys are bullying them just because of being Jews (or even because they are less likely to defend themselves than other people)?
Dana
This is bullying and like any bullying, whoever does it, its simply unacceptable and not nice to watch. However the article and some of the comments are blowing it way out of proportion. Imagine if every teenage bullying incident was reported as news. And as teenage bullying incidents go this is pretty tame and most people would have just thrown some back. Its snowballs for Gods sake!
Carole
sickening behaviour and should not be tolerated. Why didn’t any one intervene
sh
“Why didn’t any one intervene”
Yes, I wondered that too – not the forces of law, please, but all those ordinary people, just driving by….
The Trespasser
Because if someone would intervene you’d wrote something like “oh these Israelis would not even let Palestinians throw snowballs.”
sh
It’s the kind of thing that happens on the streets in the cities of other countries. Some of those thrown at us when I was a kid had stones in them. We would think of the throwers as antisemitic because we were Jews in uniforms that identified us as such. Would you have been so upset if those who didn’t put up a fight had been wearing clothes that didn’t mark them out?
Greg Pollock
Marking oneself out for what one believes is always difficult. People react to you differently, often negatively, yet that self marking is a fundamental part of their lives. I do not like what the Orthodox settlers do in the Bank; I don’t like the way religion is used as a screen. But, in itself, the self marking I respect. As to the quiet response to the hits they took–would others could do the same thing.
sh
” But, in itself, the self marking I respect. As to the quiet response to the hits they took–would others could do the same thing.”
On that I agree one hundred percent, Greg. It’s what I always thought to be the underlying principle of Torah im Derekh Eretz.
Dana
Is that the same underlying principle that tells the Ultra Orthodox to spit at young girls for baring any skin, to harass clergymen for being Christian and to throw stones at passing cars and people who they differ in opinion with?
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/girl-8-becomes-poster-child-for-anti-haredi-backlash-1.403577
sh
Actually no dear but I hope you’re feeling better now that you’ve vented. It’s Samson Raphael Hirsch’s idea of good halakhic citizenship. The ones you’re talking about can also be found spitting at Jewish boys who have no peyot – at least in the diaspora they can (they’d end up being mortally saliva-challenged here.)
aristeides
Doesn’t anyone in Israel know how to make a real snowball?
sh
I see the clip is called Terror Watch.
TobyR
Next on Terror Watch:
Palestinian boy gives Jewish co-student wedgie! How will the IDF retaliate?
Mahmoud
Who knows what happened before the video starts? Maybe there was a reason and the jews started the hassle……
Which is just derived from the standard comment here if the victims in a clip were Arabs……
Richard Witty
Is that an additional snowball?
Glee was expressed.
It could have been any group of teenage thugs, taking potshots at the convenient scapegoat.
The horror is that the ultra-orthodox are the convenient scapegoat of right and left alike.
sh
In all fairness, considering there’s ultra-orthodox and ultra-orthodox in Israel, it’s kind of difficult for anyone to read who’s what. Don’t people who look like the objects of this aggression throw stones at passing cars at the Bar Ilan junction on Shabbat? Just as they don’t represent all the ultra-orthodox, the gang mocking and throwing the snowballs represents some elements in its (frankly more beleaguered) society.
Richard Witty
“In all fairness”, no harrassment is called for.
Don’t go to the justification of harrassment. Is that what you call “fairness”?
It is a too often truth that left and right feel permission to trash the ultra-orthodox.
They’re different you know. Everybody’s “other”.
I’m not orthodox, ultra or any, but my son is. Some of my very best friends are.
sh
Your son and best friends might be, Mr. Witty, but being a product of ultra-Orthodox society myself, I doubt they can tell me anything I don’t already know. Nor do I have any grievances against them as a collective, which is one of the reasons I always had problems with Meretz. (Oy is this a cue for my loyal troll!)
A general observation, I think that the clip shocks because snow makes what we see look almost monochrome and the subject matter reminds us of black and white or sepia photos from another era and another geographical region that we prefer to forget.
Richard Witty
Humility is the useful attitude.
Some ultra-orthodox teach humility relative to knowledge, rather than the presumption of knowing. Some teach presumption.
There is no “in all fairness” justifying or even explaining thuggishness.
If you have come to resent the ultra-orthodox for personal or other reasons, then that can be a form of bigotry derived from even experienced wrongs.
The clip shocks because of the obvious dehumanization of the other.
sh
I just said I don’t resent them, Richard. You make them sound like a caste of priests.
Richard Witty
I thought you said that you didn’t resent them.
Your comment “in all fairness” dismissed the message that the individuals in question were harrassed for their association.
That is what “scapegoat” refers to. There is widespread permission to condemn, and then by ignorant fools, to harrass the ultra-orthodox.
Vicky
Mahmoud, that’s exactly what would be said if the roles were reversed. (I’m also grimly amused that people who are typically so quick to downplay, say, army abuses are reading such dark significance into the snowballs, instead of producing the customary chorus of, “Thousands are slaughtered in Syria while +972 concentrates on snowballs…!”) But these arguments are as weak here as they are elsewhere. It’s hardly inconceivable that some Palestinian guys would see a few charedim coming and decide to snowball them. No, it’s hardly a war crime, but there is petty malice in it that is very unpleasant and I don’t think we need to hesitate before saying that. It is what it is.
The Trespasser
Got to agree with you. Haredim could be easily snowballed to near-frost condition in any neighborhood in any country.
I suppose it’s something about their looks. Black on white – perfect targets, huh?
Vicky
My comment makes it pretty clear that I’m talking about this country, Trespasser. I wrote ‘some Palestinian guys’, and the discussion is about a specific incident in a specific place.
I do think that the distinctive dress makes charedim more likely to be singled out for bullying or harassment, though, and this aspect does apply anywhere. They are immediately recognisable in a way that other Jews rarely are.
The Trespasser
I did’t say “any country except Israel” did I?
The Trespasser
By the way, are you aware of any humanitarian organization which is capable of taking care of (supposedly, I’m not an expert in any way) mentally unhealthy young female African refugee in Israel?
Vicky
That depends on the nature and severity of her illness, where she is, and the type of care she needs. Have a look at the African Refugee Development Centre. I know they offer occupational therapy and counselling alongside their other welfare programs, and they would try to help her access more structured psycho-medical care if she is too ill to benefit from OT on its own. I know a psychologist in Tel Aviv who will know far more about available options than I do. I’ll call her about it.
The Trespasser
She resides on the street outside CBS TLV.
Might not be mentally ill – just been through some kind of stress or something. She does not associate with any other refugee groups or local population. Looks like a heroin junkie at final stages but she’s not a drug addict for sure.
What she needs is a bath, a shelter and professional medical and psychologist assistance. If not than I’m afraid she won’t last much longer.
I’ve tried an organization or two but neither is capable to take of such case.
Vicky
There is an ARDC shelter in Shapira. Have you tried them? If she is in a bad state she might be reluctant to find her way there (some people with trauma-related illnesses isolate themselves and struggle to break out of that pattern) but that group has crisis people who go out and talk to refugees living on the street. They might be able to establish some kind of rapport with her and get her to a better place: http://ardc-israel.org/en/content/contact-us
If you’ve already tried them I don’t know who to suggest. At least you’re persistent on her behalf. I’ve e-mailed a psychologist who is interested in refugee health and I will let you know if she has any ideas. PHR might be good people to contact too.
The Trespasser
Email me to herr.adolf.katz@gmail.com
The Trespasser
I’ve emailed bot ADRC and PHR…
Rauna
The word “attack” in the title is not appropriate.Doesn’t reflect the real situation.
Scootalol
What’s this? Teenagers being dicks? Never has the world seen the like.
Marianne
Well, I don’t like either when this people walk in the old city with arrogance taking all the space, and denying the existence of others. It’s for me more violent.
Paul J
A group of teenage boys “bullying” two teenage boys who look different with snowballs…unpleasant… but get a grip with the faux horror
caleb
We need to build more fences or ease up on the firearms law.
Pedro Granata
I feel with you indeed Noam, these arab terror-kids could ignite their snowball-belts unimpeded without being all slaughtered immediately ? Shame on Bibi !
Kibbutznik
When I was a kid we used to ride our bicycles to the beach on yom kippur , at the junction there was always waiting for us a gang of the religious kids from Kfar Haroeh who pelted us with stones and rocks and cow dung .
I guess ones politics are based on ones education and up-bringing and childhood memories Sh , huh ?
Mitchell Cohen
@Kibbutznik, to answer your ?, no. I was raised secular. The rest of my family (in the States) remain secular and will probably die secular.
PS, I am hardly a fan of “Sh”, but why do you have it in for him/her? His/her politics/outlook (based on his/her posts) seem to be quite close to yours.
Kibbutznik
to Mitchell Cohen
Sh is a she .
It is a long story and does not belong on here.
very very personal.
enough to say she abused and insulted my wife and family and sided with another religious english person who had made a mockery of a dead IDF medic that was the son of very close friends .
Noevil9
Unfortunately,that is part of the struggle in the land when one is stealing another ones land and homes. As a Palestinian, I still do not support such acts against any body. The policies of the occupation and the israeli Gov. does worst than that to the Palestinians. This circle of violence should stop by all. The palestinians need to have their rights restored, and their freedom given back to them. On a humane bases, we should all be able to live together if justice is implemented.
The Trespasser
>The palestinians need to have their rights restored, and their freedom given back to them.
Why won’t you – “Palestinians” – start by accepting Jewish right to have a state here.
Palestinians complaining for a taken rights remind me of a convict who is put behind bars for whatever crimes and is now complaining that he was misunderstood and all.
Noevil, so in your opinion Jews have a right for own state in Palestine? Yes or no answer would be much appreciated.
>On a humane bases, we should all be able to live together if justice is implemented.
What “justice” exactly? Sharia isn’t quite compatible with human rights, you know…
Samir S. Halabi
What a spity those Pali-Mamzerim weren’t shot dead where they stood.
They are the same as the Nazis who cut the beards of religious Jewish men. If they had the chance they would emulate the nazis in every way.