Friday, September 9, 2011

Settlers Write Racist Graffiti on BZU Walls

On Friday morning around 2am, settlers made their way to up to Birzeit University and spray-painted racist slogans on the walls just outside the West Gate.

Below are the translated phrases under each picture, taken from the university's own Facebook page.

Jews: Let us win

Revenge

Ramat-migron, Revenge, Jewish underground

Wait for the revenge, murder.

Ramat migron, revenge is king, price tag, [a nasty word about the prophet Muhammad pbuh]

The miscreants also left their marks in the town of Birzeit, as they attacked and vandalized the main mosque with racist graffiti.

The university's website has condemned this "cowardly criminal" act. Students have questioned the presence of the university guards, but the guards reassured everyone that the culprits did not manage to get inside the campus itself, adding that the property remained untouched.

Having just got off the phone with one of the guards, it remains to be seen whether the culprits can be identified as settlers or not. The dean of the university has issued a gag order on the incident for the time being, meaning that all faculty members and employees within the university are not allowed to share any information they might have to avoid wild rumors from circulating. Whoever they are, they got into a single car and left the premises at around 2:30 am.

This act of vandalism has all the markings of a settler attack. It is is the latest in a series of upped settler antics anticipating the PA's nonsensical UN bid for statehood, after settlers torched a mosque in the village of Qusra near Nablus and attacked a faculty member of Bethlehem University with rocks while he was driving. A student from the same university was also attacked, and after escaping her car through the passenger door to appeal to the Israeli soldiers nearby for help, she was told to return back to her car. Today, settlers in Hebron attacked a family's tent and set it on fire, with the father still inside.

Israeli-American journalist Joseph Dana noted correctly, in light of a recent settler attack on the IOF's military base (which incidentally also had the words 'price tag' sprayed) that these transgressors are "one of the most dangerous and volatile elements on the ground" and that in order for the state of Israel to be taken seriously by the international community, it must curb its "rogue settlers." Yet the Israeli army only seeks to further fan the flames by training and equipping settlers with heavy duty weaponry in order to prepare them for any Palestinian protests that might turn 'violent', dubbing the move Operation Summer Seeds. It is no secret that settlers largely behave with impunity and have the assured protection of the Israeli Occupation Forces. Settlers are usually armed and harass neighboring villages, more often than not lands they've expropriated from the Palestinians, by setting olive groves and fields on fire or by physically assailing the villagers.

Not a word of condemnation either from Israel or its sycophantic brother the PA has been issued regarding these recent settler attacks. One thing is for certain though: these attacks will only increase throughout the month and with no accountability on the settlers' side, a simple 'heads-up' for the Palestinians simply won't do.

All settlements in the West Bank are illegal.
There are over 280,000 settlers in the West Bank (not counting East Jerusalem).
There are more than 180,000 settlers in East Jerusalem.
In total, that makes almost half a million settlers, a mammoth obstacle for any sustainable peace.

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