Land dispute behind shooting near Nablus
Palestine, Local, 8/6/1998

No Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for the shooting to death of two Jewish settlers near Nablus on the West Bank two days ago, but the general assessment is that the perpetrators were "locally grouped" and not necessarily members of any certain Palestinian opposition group.

Israeli intelligence sources believe the attack was instigated by the tough land dispute that has been going on for many years between the Jewish settlers in Yitzhar and the Arab owners of the land, those who live in the surrounding Palestinian villages. Evidence that Israeli investigators found at the scene of the shooting and the intelligence work that followed the incident have so far strengthened this assessment. But Israeli security sources said it is still premature to reach any conclusions and that more in-depth investigation is needed.

According to accounts compiled from various sources, the assailants had carefully planned their attack. They gathered intelligence on routine patrols by settlers on the new road that the settlers paved through privately-owned Palestinian land last February. Moreover, the assailants had apparently conducted patrols in the area and studied not only their assault plans but also ways of retreat.

They are professionals in this context, and Israeli officials suspect the attack was conducted by a group of Palestinian policemen, who have a station in one of the neighboring villages, Israeli papers reported Thursday.

The papers noted that Palestinian officials have made a number of harsh statements in recent weeks about land appropriation and, as such, increased the sense of unrest felt among the villagers in the Nablus area. However, the settlers paved the new road without even receiving the authorization of the Israeli military government. Right after the road was paved, senior officers in the Israeli army conducted a series of consultations and agreed that the scene would certainly become a focal point or incentive for attacks by Palestinians.

For this kind of conflict where Palestinian lands are in question, an organized campaign of attacks on Jewish settlers might not be the appropriate explanation. Palestinian individuals whose lands are confiscated or those who do not own any land but feel fully enraged by the continued takeover of Arab lands by Jewish settlers might opt to act independently without having to wait for any instructions from above.

The settlement of Yitzhar, site of the attack, is a stronghold of ultra right-wing Jewish settlers and some of them, including one of the two shot dead two days ago, were involved in violent attacks on Palestinians in the neighboring villages.

Nader Allan, a 26-year-old Palestinian from the village of Einyabous near the settlement, said he identified one of the leading settlers of Yitzhar as the one who shot him two years ago. Allan said he saw the settler as he spoke on Israeli television calling on the army to extend additional protection to the settlement.

"This settler was the one who opened fire at me as I was working my fields next to the settlement some two years ago. He shot me with two bullets, one that hit my head and the other my leg," said Allan. Allan's father said that since this settlement was set up several years ago, Jewish settlers have taken vast areas of privately owned land, occasionally beating up and harassing their owners.

"We are talking about people who will try to lay their hands on weapons, or will try to make explosives out of simple material that can be bought at any store. We assess that they will act as lone wolves and will tell only a small number of people about their secret plans. That means that it will be harder to obtain prior intelligence information about them and thus thwart their desires," explained one Israeli police source referring to the organizational structure of the assailants. Israeli police and army sources warned that reprisal attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinians are very likely to take place in the near future. The source said the army was put on alert in the area but no further steps have been taken as yet.

The attack itself has raised questions as to what should exactly be done with those remote Jewish settlements that are scattered in the West Bank among high-density Palestinian areas. The extreme right called on the Israeli government to expand the existing settlement of Yitzhar and to build new Jewish settlements in what they call the "appropriate Zionist response."

The left called on the government to take a brave decision to dismantle those settlements that do not contribute to Israel's security and even form a burden for the army. Among those was the Hebrew daily Haaretz, which called in its Thursday editorial on the Israeli government to implement its part of the interim agreements. "A government that cares about the welfare of its citizens, on both sides of the Green Line, should decide -without delay - to immediately execute its part of the Oslo and Hebron accords," it wrote. The paper said that in the long term, in the negotiations over a final settlement "Israel should strive toward the evacuation of isolated settlements such as Yitzhar [near Nablus] and Netzarim in the Gaza Strip. The tactic of spreading out these settlements was designed from the outset to frustrate any territorial compromise, under the claim that Palestinian control of the land would endanger the residents."

A commentary in Hatzofe daily that is affiliated with the extreme right, meanwhile, blamed the Palestinian government directly for the attack. It said "all of the fingerprints left at Yitzhar led to the Palestinian Authority. It was a bold, highly professional murder that was indicative of the high level of military expertise of the perpetrators." It hinted that the perpetrators had used a method usually used by the Israeli army's elite units which is called "death confirmation" procedure.

Maariv daily, meanwhile, wrote that right wing politicians and settlers who used the shooting as a pretext for impeding the peace process "are the same people who would oppose the second phase redeployment even if Arafat eradicated terrorism completely."

Previous Stories:
  Jerusalem committee resolution important step in right direction   (8/1/1998)
  Financial backing needed to brake settlements, ministers hold side talks   (7/30/1998)
  US Jewish organization exposes East Jerusalem settler funding   (7/22/1998)

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