Settlers: Palestinians vandalizing Jewish farmers' property
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent Last update - 03:13 20/11/2007
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/925886.html

West Bank settlers say there has been a recent spate of Palestinian
vandalism on property belonging to Jewish farmers, and an Haaretz
investigation has found evidence of arson, sabotage of equipment and
destruction of crops.

The farmers claim that the police are not designating their complaints as
high priority, because they do not fall under the rubric of "hostile
terrorist activity."

Settlers put the damage from vandalism in the tens of millions of shekels
for which they are not compensated, because state authorities recognize only
damage sustained in "a hostile act against Israel."

The police maintain that it treats equally Palestinians and Israelis who
damage agricultural produce.

A new report by a settler civil rights group cites several examples of
damage to Jewish farmers' property. Under the heading, "Who will protect my
olive tree?" the report describes the torching of 900 dunams of grazing
ground, a stable, and 30 pomegranate trees belonging to Yehuda Cohen of Bat
Ayin. Shamai Pozak at Ofra had young saplings chopped down, tons of
grapevines destroyed before the harvest, and irrigation pipes torched. Moshe
Kedem of Pnei Kedem had 500 olive tree saplings uprooted.

At Sde Calev, in the Hebron Hills region, arson consumed more than 100
cherry trees, and assorted buildings and storage sheds were set on fire.
Just recently, another 400 grapevines were uprooted.

Shlomi Cohen's vineyard in the Dolev region was uprooted four times, which
finally prompted the Shin Bet security service to investigate. Suspects were
subsequently arrested, but the Shin Bet does not ordinarily get involved in
these cases.

Israeli police hardly ever enters Arab villages in the West Bank, and as
with cases of agricultural theft within Israel, the moment the stolen
property makes it into the nearby Arab village, its owners usually have no
chance of getting it back.

When farmers occasionally have conducted their own investigations and
located their property in the surrounding villages, the police refrained
from entering the villages.

An exception was the case of Yehuda Cohen, who persuaded the police to
intervene by threatening to go into the town of Dahariya himself to retrieve
his stolen horses.

Settlers complain that irrigation systems are prime targets for repeated
vandalism by Arab shepherds, who slice the pipes to water their flocks, and
by Palestinian farmers or others who tap into these systems for free water.

The new report lists a series of cases in which "Israeli and international
leftist groups were clearly involved in incidents of rioting that damaged
agricultural plots of Jews in Judea and Samaria."

This claim proved correct in at least two of the cases Haaretz checked. For
example, in the course of a protest march by leftists, anarchists and Arabs
on August 22, dozens broke into Shlomi Cohen's vineyard at Neria and
uprooted some 5,000 vine saplings.

On October 17, a left-wing activist was caught along with Arabs from the
West Bank in the act of setting several fires around the illegal outpost
Havat Gilad.

There are indications of leftists' involvement in several other cases, and
police sources confirm the matter, but no suspects have been arrested.

A majority of police files opened following complaints by Jewish farmers are
closed on the ground of "perpetrator unknown," and most of the handful of
cases that result in arrests are usually closed for lack of evidence.
Sometimes cases are closed for "lack of public interest."

According to the report, investigations in these cases sometimes take an
unexpected turn, when Arabs under interrogation for committing terrorist
attacks reveal they were also involved in sabotaging Jewish farmers'
property.

The report claims that nothing is being done to deter "potential Arab
offenders," and that police officers respond slowly to complaints of
vandalism. Furthermore, police do not devote intelligence resources to
dealing with this issue, nor generally "makes use of the Shin Bet's
intelligence operation."

A police spokesman said in response "the actions the police take against
Palestinian and Israeli law offenders who damage the property or produce of
farmers on either side makes no distinction between the sides."

He said that every complaint is dealt with, including by intelligence means
if necessary.