Nadene Goldfoot
An Arab village in Samaria, like HurawaIsrael AM reported that On Sunday, which was yesterday, February 26, 2023, 2 brothers from the settlement of Har Bracha were murdered by a terrorist who shot them as they were sitting in traffic while driving through the village of Hurawa on highway 60. Hillel (22) and Yagel (20) Yaniv were laid to rest earlier today, escorted by thousands of mourners.
Both of the men were yeshiva students. Hillel had completed his IDF service in the navy and Yagel was training to join an elite IDF combat unit.
After the terror attack, hundreds of settlers converged on the village of Hurawa and burned down 35 houses and close to 100 cars. Palestinian sources say that around 75 homes in total were damaged. One Palestinian man was killed and close to 100 injured, most from smoke inhalation.
Hundreds of IDF troops entered Hurawa to stop the violence and help rescue residents from their burning homes. Internal Security Minister Ben Gvir visited the scene and said that while he understands the settler's anger, citizens must not take the law into their own hands. Only the government can deal with terrorism. Finance Minister Smotrich echoed Ben Gvir's words. The IDF added several additional combat battalions to existing forces in Judea and Samaria.
In the past, there have been horrible murders of whole families and no village ever reacted in like return. After all these years, this new generation has had it. They rebelled but irrationally.
Hills of SamariaFounded in 1983, Har Brakha, where the 2 murdered men were from, is an Israeli village located on the southern ridge of Mount Gerizim at an elevation of 870 metres above sea level, in the West Bank's Samarian mountains, near the Palestinian city of Nablus.
American Christian Evangelicals are involved in Har Brakha.
Hayovel, the U.S. organization that brings them to Har Bracha, is among a growing list of evangelical groups that operate exclusively in the so-called “biblical heartland.” Over the past decade, it has brought more than 1,700 volunteers to the settlements – and only the settlements because, as a matter of principle, its volunteers do not assist farmers within Israel proper.
Explaining the organization’s special attachment to this disputed piece of land – that most of the international community does not recognize as part of Israel – Hayovel states on its website: “Every country in the world has turned its back on Judea and Samaria, the heartland of Israel, where 80 percent of the Bible was either written or occurred.”
Evangelicals are different from most other Christians in that they read "religiously" the Old Testament as well as their New. They are right about that; and most Jews thought that Christians didn't realize this, that their ancient home was Judah and by consequence, Samaria as well. Jews, from past experiences, do not trust Christians who always seem to have had their goal, wanting to convert Jews to Christianity, so this is a surprise to most of us, that Har Brakha Jews are allowing so many Christians to help them in their endeavors.
Har Bracha is a religious community which is located on Mount Gerizim in the Shomron. Har Bracha is mentioned in the Book of Deuteronomy: “When God your Lord brings you to the land which you are about to occupy, you must declare the blessing on Mount Gerizim…” (Deuteronomy 11:29). There are approximately 350 families currently living in the community.
Har Bracha is essentially composed of young families in their twenties and early thirties, however, there are also older families with married children who are raising the third generation on Har Bracha. The atmosphere amongst the residents is one of warmth and caring, including assistance to women who have given birth and families in distress. Social activities, such as presentations for the children and women’s evenings are constant features.
"Har Bracha, thank G-d, is constantly growing, and each year approximately 25 new families join our community, a fact which requires the continual planning and building of new houses. We are in the process of building the ‘Tzurim’ project which will add a 145 new apartments. We are doing our best to keep up with the growing demand!
A family in a religious Israeli community could count 10 people, so 350 X 10 could be 3,500 people in the village.
"There is a large library, Kupat Cholim Leumit which gives services to all the different branches, and Tipat Chalav. We have a large grocery store, a pizza shop, clothing, cutlery and more."
A Little History… The community started as an army outpost, and in the year 5743 (1982), it was decided to turn it into a civilian community.
Background: The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) established Nahal villages. Nahal is a corps which combines military training with farm work. Its members become farmers when their service ends. The villages are in substances, military points, like those held by any other unit of the IDF.
Unlike other communities, there was no previous establishment of a group of families ready to move to there, and therefore, a number of families from surrounding settlements were called upon to help populate the new community. Approximately four years later, the majority of families had left – leaving three families alone!
After a few months, a group of families from Machon Meir arrived to help get the settlement off the ground. Five years later, in the Jewish year 5753 (1992), the Hesder Yeshiva of Har Bracha was established. Since its establishment, the community has grown consistently. Machon Meir is a religious Zionist outreach organization and yeshiva situated in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe, close to Givat Shaul. Machon Meir is one of the larger outreach organization in Israel, and is strongly associated with nationalist politics and the settler movement. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, who is also the chief rabbi of Har Brakha. While the vast majority of students (about 150 annually) are not originally from settlements, many graduates of the yeshiva return to live on the settlement. The rabbi is all for female IDF guarding them. " Female soldiers who contribute to Israel's defense are performing a mitzvah." Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, one of the most important figures in religious Zionism, has very unorthodox views. He sees no reason to boycott Judaism's progressive movements or prevent couples' rights to seek alternative wedding ceremonies. "I oppose religious coercion," he states.
Evangelical Christians from the United States have joined the community, with the support of Rabbi Melamed, and their presence has aroused some controversy among residents.
It bothers many of us by using the term, settlement. Americans have a problem with it as in America, a settlement was a temporary or very new group of people protecting their lives from the Native Americans they called Indians. Usually there was a wooden fencing put up around the yard containing buildings with a fort as a main center. For instance, "In 1834 the Methodists, headed by Jason Lee, established the first permanent settlement in the Willamette River valley. Contenders included Corvallis, Oregon City (where the legislature was located for a brief period), and Salem. (Those writers had to use the adjective, permanent, in order to change the idea of not being permanent.)
Above, the journalists used settlement first for the Jewish village. Then they used village for the Arabs. Someone here had made such a distinction. Settlement is used as a political word for new Jewish communities, and here it is in Samaria, the less populated section of "Judea and Samaria" which was relabeled by Jordan as The West Bank. .
"Using the title of a settlement can be misleading in the absence of any widely accepted definition. For example, city status in the United Kingdom historically arose from its place in the ecclesiastic hierarchy. (In modern times, city status is awarded for secular reasons but without reference to size.)
Thus, some cathedral cities in England (e.g., Ely, Cambridgeshire) have a much smaller populations than some towns (e.g., Luton).
In the United States, the distinction between town and city is a matter of a decision by local government to incorporate. In addition, there is no agreement as to the number of levels in the hierarchy or what they should be called. Many terms used to describe settlements (e.g., village) have no legal definition, or may have contradictory legal definitions in different jurisdictions."
Arab villages are emptying. They are immigrating to the USA. According to reporter Assaf Gibor, Route 60, which runs from Afula, on Israel’s side of the “green line” through Jenin, near Shechem, through Ofra and outside Ramallah to Jerusalem, features ghost villages on either side of the highway. The Jewish settlers of Ofra and Amona have been wondering what has happened to neighboring Arab villages such as Silwad, three miles from the main road and about 8 miles north-east of Ramallah. A visitor happening inside the village can see numerous, luxurious villas, that are deserted.
Arab immigration from Judea and Samaria has been going on for decades. Official Palestinian Authority figures suggest there are three million Arabs living there. In reality, the figures are lighter by at least one million, according to many experts. Since 1997, Israel is no longer operating the census there, and the PA count does not abide by international norms, whereby a person who has been absent for a year or more from his country is no longer counted. Demographers Yaakov Feitelson and Yoram Ettinger suggest the figure of 1.8 million Arabs in Judea and Samaria, as opposed to the PA claim of 2.9 million.
Update: 3/7/2023: By and from Barry Shaw, INN 1. Palestinian Arab terrorists in the northern Samaria terror hub of Huwara murdered two brothers, Hillel and Yagel Yaniv. The Yaniv brothers were executed in a rain of bullets after the terrorists had rammed their vehicle into them before gunning them down as they sat trapped in their car.
2. The attack was predictable. In the month leading up to their murder, Palestinian Arabs carried out an average of two-three deadly rock and Molotov cocktail attacks a day against Israeli cars in Huwara and on the Gilad route leading through the Arab settlement.
3. Following the murder of the Jewish brothers, Huwara Arabs celebrated by handing out sweets. They also held an official firework celebration,
4. Among the main celebrants was the owner of a car and spare parts lot named Ayed Maharab. He is a paroled terrorist who spent five years in Israeli prison. His Facebook page is filled with celebrations of terrorist attacks and of himself holding an AK-47. Maharab published a post following the Yaniv brothers’ murders celebrating the attack.
5. Following the murder of their friends and neighbors, and after seeing the Arab celebration of their atrocitty, a number of young Israelis from surrounding villages entered Huwara and committed acts of vigilante violence. Among other things, they burned Maharab’s car lot. The scenes you saw of burning vehicles was Maharab’s spare parts lot. No building and no individual Arabs were attacked or hurt by the aggrieved and angry friends of Hillel and Yagel. The claims of a death were lies.
6. Days following the killing of the two Jewish boys and the arson protest of their close friends, Hadi Amr, the US Ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, visited Huwara.
He didn’t visit the site of the terror attack against the Yaniv brothers.
He didn’t pay his respects to the Yaniv family.
He didn’t even condemn their murder.
Instead, the U.S. Embassy’s Palestinian Affairs Department’s Twitter page reported that Amr “visited with the [Palestinian] ‘victims’ of Sunday’s Huwara attack. He expressed his deepest condolences and condemned what he falsely called the “unacceptable widescale, indiscriminate violence by setters.”
Amr had his picture taken at Maharab’s burned-down car lot.
Resource:
Israel AM
https://www.israel365news.com/312474/whole-arab-villages-judea-samaria-stand-empty-residents-flee-us/
https://forward.com/news/415630/inside-the-evangelical-money-flowing-into-the-west-bank/
https://en.yhb.org.il/har-bracha/
