As a result, the organization has been running 'tours' of Judea and Samaria this summer, which are designed to show the 'facts on the ground' in the area, and of course to indoctrinate people to the 'Peace Now' point of view.
As you might imagine, many revenants are not happy with the presence of their newfound 'guests.' And one area in which revenants are particularly unhappy with the guests' arrival is in Hebron.
On Friday, four or five 'Peace Now' buses were turned back by the IDF at the entrance to Hebron. From JPost's coverage of the incident on Sunday, you would think that the IDF was totally unjustified.
Hebron settlers successfully thwarted Peace Now's attempt to bring five busloads of visitors to their city on Friday.Read the whole thing. It reads like a 'Peace Now' propaganda piece except for Federman's comments at the very end. The problem is that 'Peace Now' has people who are not yet indoctrinated to its viewpoint on these 'tours.' The article in Sunday's Post was apparently a lie. This letter - written by American tourists - appeared in Wednesday's JPost.
The tour was meant to highlight the plight of Hebron's 166,000 Arabs and illustrate how their lives have become increasingly difficult as a result of the town's 600 Jewish residents.
Instead of a tour, a confrontation ensued between settlers, police and individuals from the tour outside the city, where police and soldiers were waiting to turn the buses around.
Peace Now insists it had all the proper permits to enter Hebron, having been in touch with the relevant ministries. They had also coordinated the entire trip with the police and even had undercover police officers on the buses and in unmarked vehicles driving alongside. [I'm sure any undercover police were there to defend against terror attacks by Arabs and not 'protests' by Jews. CiJ]
However, upon reaching the police roadblock, Peace Now was given a number of reasons as to why the buses could not enter. These ranged from the fact that another group had encountered extreme hostility from settlers earlier in the day, there was a military operation in the Palestinian section of the town, the group arrived too late, and the permit was the wrong kind. In the end, the army declared the area a "closed military area," cancelling Peace Now's permit.
The group said that what took place was part of relatively new pattern of growing threats and violence used by Hebron's settlers against organizations such as Peace Now, and that over the past six months the settlers had grown increasingly hostile and had used that to their advantage, intimidating the military and police to deny groups like theirs entry.
"Those settlers control everyone that lives there," said Noa Galil, one of Peace Now's tour leaders. "And it's like the army doesn't know how to handle them."
She said that in the past year it had gotten harder and harder to get into Hebron, and in the last few months, "it is not possible."
Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer said he was disappointed that the IDF had been taking the easy way out by not confronting the settlers. "They surrender to the settler threat, and we condemn it," he said.
Oppenheimer said that when settlers brought in groups, which could number more than 100 people, the army placed the town's Palestinian residents under curfew to allow the visitors to enter with ease.
Hebron resident Noam Federman, who came to meet the buses, said the settlers were justified on Friday.
"Ninety percent of the Arabs in Hebron are Hamas and groups like Peace Now encourage them to kill Jews," he said.
Federman also said Hebron's Arabs got a dangerous message when they saw large numbers of Israelis and foreigners, guarded by the army, coming to see their struggle against the settlers.
"They get the impression that everyone is against us and that they can kill us without being condemned," he said.
Sir, - My wife and I are here for two months on Kibbutz Nir Am as volunteers and supporters of Israel. I am also a freelance radio journalist with 10 trips into Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, including the North during the 2006 Lebanon War.Now we know that 'Peace Now' lies. Was the article's author, Josh Scheinert (who is apparently an intern - a Google search shows he's a law student from Toronto) there, or was he spoon-fed propaganda by 'Peace Now?' The Post's readers have a right to know.
We heard about Peace Now offering tours into the settlement areas of the West Bank and Hebron and decided we would go to get a look at areas we would not otherwise have access to.
Re Josh Scheinert's "Peace Now buses turned back at Hebron again after settlers protest" (July 20): My wife and I were on one of those buses as we pulled into the military checkpoint. We were told by one of the tour leaders that she expected to be hassled by the police/IDF, and would be back after speaking with them; and to stay on the buses.
We arrived at the checkpoint at 12:15 noon, having left our departure point in Jerusalem at around 11:30, 30 minutes late, stopping to rendezvous with the three buses from Tel Aviv.
The writer wrote about a "confrontation" with settlers, as if they were there en masse. There were two - or maybe three - settlers in the group, with only two involved in the verbal shouting match when the police quickly stepped in to isolate and move the settlers out of the area. We would never have been in that spot for the settlers to confront if one of the tour leaders had not come back to the bus to rally us to a large rock, which he used as a pulpit to speak.
The IDF allowed the freedom of speech, then targeted the settlers, not our group. They did not penetrate the milling Peace Now group more than 10 feet, and were never physical in their "intimidation" of the group. Quite benign would be my analysis of the situation.
We were repeatedly assured by the Peace Now guides that entrance permits had been approved and issued. I know that none were presented at the IDF checkpoint, nor to us, the group.
MICHAEL AND MICHELLE PAYNE
Winchester, Virginia
Cross-posted to Israel Matzav.
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