The rightwing news website Hakol Hayehudi, discovered an essential flaw in anti-Israel post of MachsomWatch, which compared the suffering endured by Arab thieves to that of Victor Hugo’s 1862 heroic figure Jean Valjean. The flaw had to do with just how much said thieves had stolen.
Rina Zur, of MachsomWatch fame, posted on Facebook on June 6:
“The story of Les Misérables has been revived – two shepherds have been detained for six days for stealing a watermelon. […]. Jean Valjean was sent to prison for stealing a loaf of bread – in the 19th century – about a week ago, a guard of a watermelon field Miksha near Brosh in the Jordan Valley, caught Luai and Muhammad, two shepherds from Ein El Hilweh, who tried to steal a watermelon from the settlement […]. The Jewish caretaker, resident of the settlement of Shadmot Mehola, called the police. The police responded to his request, arrested them and transferred them to detention in the military camp near the Huwwara checkpoint.
“It is said that the detainees in Huwwara receive food only once a day, and insufficient drinking water.
“All this happened on Thursday, May 30. Today – Tuesday, June 4, – they are still detained. 6 days for stealing a single watermelon? Do you understand the meaning of life under a repressive regime?”
According to NGO Watch, MachsomWatch, describing itself as “a movement of Israeli women […] who oppose the Israeli occupation and the denial of Palestinians’ rights to move freely in their land,” receives millions of dollars in donations from foreign entities and the New Israel Fund.
According to Hakol Hayehudi, the MachsomWatch narrative citing Victor Hugo’s plot was a tad inaccurate, seeing as the two Arab thieves were caught piling a pickup truck with not one, but dozens of watermelons stolen from the settlement of Shadmot Mehola in the Jordan Valley.
From the picture we received from Hakol Hayehudi, taken at the moment of the arrest, it is clear that the two enterprising Arabs stole not a “single watermelon” but at least 60 watermelons.
The local security officer captured the thieves and alerted police, which arrested them and confiscated their vehicle.
Local settlers praised the police and expressed their hope that the arrest of these thieves would yield some deterrence to the numerous other Arab thieves in the area. The phenomenon of agricultural crime in the Jordan Valley has long been a source of economic devastation to the entire area. Dozens of tractors have been stolen by Arabs in recent years, crop have been destroyed and their yield stolen in hundreds of cases, and farmers are suffering severe damages.
Last week, the Kan channel reported a systematic Arab robbery of water intended for the Jewish agricultural settlements in the Jordan Valley, which threatens the very existence of Jewish agriculture in the region.