“What I have Witnessed in Susiya” By Rabbi Arik Ascherman

June 22, 2014

I have accompanied the Palestinians of the South Hebron Hills since 700 were expelled in 1999 and returned home by Israel’s High Court. Rabbis For Human Rights lawyers currently represent Palestinian Susya against the High Court petition by the Susya settlement and “Regavim” to demolish Palestinian Susya. Because those of us who love Israel tend to discredit the messenger, I will add that RHR received the Speaker of the Knesset’s Prize for contributions to Israeli society, defends the human rights of Jews and non-Jews alike, and is endorsed by hundreds of rabbis and rabbinical organizations around the world.

More on Rabbis for Human Rights

More on Rabbis for Human Right’s campaign to save Susya

Documentation shows that South Hebron Hills Palestinians arrived at least 180 years ago, creating the city of Yatta and satellite cave communities like Susya. Some live in caves part of the year, and others for the entire year. Often adults live in the caves while schoolchildren and the elderly are in Yatta for most of the week. Today’s Susya residents owned lands on both sides of the 1948 border, but were pushed out of Israel and joined their families in Susya. In 1983 the Susya settlement was founded. Today there are many additional settler outposts unauthorized by Israel.

Settlers take over more land each year. We sometimes prevent them. Four years after Moshe Deutsch planted a vineyard on Hushiya family land, the IDF returned the family. Elsewhere, despite a 1997 letter from Israel’s Defense Minister declaring lands between the Susya settlement and Palestinian Susya as private Palestinian land, there are today vast settler fields… We have personally witnessed or intervened to prevent countless acts of violence and encroachment. I have watched security forces stand by as settlers and their flocks entered Palestinian lands, even when there were orders to keep them out. I have seen Israeli children hike through Palestinian Susya as if it didn’t exist, and stood between a settler and the unarmed elderly Palestinian at whose feet he was shooting. Police complaints rarely help.

http://rhr.org.il/eng/2014/06/what-i-have-witnessed-in-susiya-by-rabbi-arik-ascherman/