Settlers desecrate mosque and cemetery in Hebron

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Friday, November 21, 2008

HEBRON, Occupied West Bank: Jewish settlers angry at an Israeli court order for their eviction from a house they occupied in Hebron desecrated a mosque and tombs in the Occupied West Bank city before dawn on Thursday, witnesses said. The settlers scrawled "Mohammad is a pig" and "Death to the Arabs" on the front of a mosque and drew the Israeli emblem, the Star of David, on several gravestones in a Muslim cemetery, the witnesses said.

The mosque and cemetery both lie near the Hebron house where dozens of hard-line Jewish colonists are defying the order by the Israeli High Court setting last Wednesday a deadline for them to leave or face eviction. Israeli soldiers are on round-the-clock patrol in the tense neighborhood.

The ruling, which was slammed by settler leaders, follows a series of violent clashes between Israeli security forces and hard-line Jews seeking to erect unsanctioned outposts in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967.

All Israeli presence on occupied land is illegal under international law.

The court rejected an appeal by two right-wing organizations against a government order to evacuate the Hebron house, which the settlers claim they had purchased from a Palestinian, who denies selling the house.

The four-story house at the center of the dispute was occupied in March 2007 by dozens of hard-line colonists who have dubbed it "the house of peace."

The court ruling said the settlers "should turn to the appropriate legal bodies to prove their ownership over the house and refrain from taking the law into their own hands by occupying the property against the will of its owner."

The settler representatives claimed the house had been bought for $700,000, but Palestinian Faez Rajabi said he had documents proving he was the legal owner and that the deal had never been completed.

While the court ruling said there were "contradictions and queries" in Rajabi's claims, it also said that documents presented by the settlers in a bid to show ownership "were found by police investigators to be forged."

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=97866

Nov 20, 2008 -- 8:13PM, Chief Science Officer Spock [MidCity] wrote:

thats pretty messed up. some of those settlers are just really so extreme, if if were not for the fact that they had money, they would probably be suicide bombers.

I just don't understand how they can do that, this is the type of thing you hear in the news with anti-semites desecrating Jewish graveyards and spraying swastikas and stuff like that.  They have been through that, how can they do this and why desecrate a cemetary and a place of worship especially since they act like they are so religious and are very strict when it comes to their own burial grounds and houses of worship.

death to arabs huh, werent there arab jews in what is now isreal before 1948

Nov 20, 2008 -- 11:08PM, 419 wrote:

those are pretty much orthodox clowns. lots of jews came to israel from middle-eastern pogroms. 

Just clowns or criminals and racists? 

Nov 21, 2008 -- 12:16AM, 419 wrote:

Nov 20, 2008 -- 11:19PM, Lebanon wrote:

Nov 20, 2008 -- 11:08PM, 419 wrote:

those are pretty much orthodox clowns. lots of jews came to israel from middle-eastern pogroms. 

Just clowns or criminals and racists? 

add that to the list if it makes u feel better

I wish you would mention it yourself without being told.  Your language belittles their crimes and actions.