Photo Credit: Yossi Zamir/Flash 90
Amira Hass

The leader of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) filed a complaint with police, charging Haaretz journalist Amira Hass with incitement by writing that Palestinian Authority Arabs have a “duty” to throw rocks at Jews.

She wrote her article after an Israeli court found a Hevron cab driver guilty of murder for throwing rocks and causing the fatal cash of a car driven by American-Israeli citizen Asher Palmer 18 months ago. Palmer and his two-year-old son were killed when he lost control of his vehicle and smashed into a guard rail near Kiryat Arba.

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The rock-throwing terrorist, Wael Salaman Mohammed el-Arjeh, confessed to throwing rocks but denied he intended to murder anyone.

Hass, a Jewish journalist who has lived in Gaza and Ramallah and fully supports the Palestinian Authority, wrote, “Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule. Throwing stones is an action as well as a metaphor of resistance.”

Ron Shechner, a former assistant to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz in the Sharon government and now director of Yesha, told the Jewish Press he filed the complaint with police because Hass’ article directly incites violence against Jews.

Hours after the complaint was filed with Jerusalem police, rioting Palestinian Authority Arabs stoned dozens of cars on the highway from Jerusalem to Kiryat Arab-Hevron.

Hass sees no problem with rock-throwing, which usually is aimed at causing drivers to lose control of their vehicles and crash, as happened to Palmer.

If Hass’s car were stoned by Arab attackers, she no doubt would blame Israel, which she said is a reality of violence and whose soldiers, “bureaucrats, jurists and lawyers…protect the fruits of violence instilled in foreign occupation − resources, profits, power and privileges.”

She justified stone-throwers by stating it often “is borne of boredom, excessive hormones, mimicry, boastfulness and competition” and is a message that, “We’ve had enough of you, occupiers.”

Hass advised Palestinian Authority schools to introduce basic classes in resistance: how to build multiple “tower and stockade” villages in Area C; how to behave when army troops enter your homes; comparing different struggles against colonialism in different countries; how to use a video camera to document the violence of the regime’s representatives; methods to exhaust the military system and its representatives; a weekly day of work in the lands beyond the separation barrier;

“How to remember identifying details of soldiers who flung you handcuffed to the floor of the jeep, in order to submit a complaint; the rights of detainees and how to insist on them in real time; how to overcome fear of interrogators; and mass efforts to realize the right of movement.”

Ironically, the same advice could be written for Jewish right-wing activists.

Back in July of 2001, the Hebron Jewish community sued Ha’aretz, after Amira Hass had written that the residents of Beit Hadassah in Hevron abused the corpse of a terrorist. She wrote that the residents kicked, spat on, and danced atop the body of a dead Arab terrorist, who had just been shot and killed by soldiers shortly after he threw a grenade at them.

The plaintiffs cited an announcement by the IDF spokesman at the time asserting that the Jewish residents did not abuse the body in any manner. The Hebron residents demanded an apology, which Ha’aretz did not provide. They then sued the paper for 250 thousand shekels (about $70 thousand), and Ha’aretz did not even submit a defense. So Judge Shalev Gertel awarded the full sum to the Hebron community, plus 20 thousand shekels (about $5,500) for legal expenses.

Yori Yanover contributed to this report.

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Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.