Jews for Allah

[Guest]

The Settlers
We were given very strict instructions about the settlers who lived in Hebron - we were not to interfere with them in anyway. When we first arrived, someone told us the story of how the previous reserve unit had a run in with Moshe Levinger, founder of the Hebron Jewish settlement.

First a bit about Levinger, from a B'Tselem report:


On September 30, 1988, Rabbi Moshe Levinger opened fire with live ammunition in the center of Hebron, killing Qa'id Hasan Salah and wounding Ibrahim Bali. Levinger was detained for questioning and released on bail. On April 12, 1989, he was indicted on charges of manslaughter, causing serious bodily injury in aggravated circumstances, and causing malicious damage. His trial opened on May 22, 1989, in Jerusalem District Court. Levinger pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

The trial proceeded for two years. On May 1, 1990, following a plea bargain between the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office and Levinger's lawyer, Levinger was convicted of causing death by negligence, wounding in aggravated circumstances, and doing malicious damage. The two original serious charges - manslaughter and doing serious harm - were dropped, and Levinger agreed to plead guilty to the lesser counts. Jerusalem District Court Judge, Shalom Brenner, immediately imposed a twelve-month prison sentence, seven of which were suspended.

Levinger's attorney requested a two-week delay before his client would commence serving his sentence to enable Levinger to arrange personal matters before entering prison. The judge consented. On May 14, 1990 [right toward the end of our tour of duty], Levinger entered Eyal Prison in the Sharon District.

He was released on August 14, 1990, after serving three months of the five-month sentence, a third having been deducted for good behavior. His followers celebrated his release.

Apparently, unlike most murder suspects, Levinger was not being detained. More than that, he was actually provided a luxury car and driver courtesy of the Israeli army. One fine day, he and a bunch of other hooligans went through the Arab casbah (market) in Hebron, overturning stalls and shuttering stores. This was a common practice - the settlers believed it was necessary "to show a Jewish presence" for otherwise the "Arab animals would lift their heads (i.e. get uppity)."

The head of the reserve unit, probably a leftist Kibbutznik, went to confront Levinger. Levinger looked him in the eye and said. "You are only a Major. I don't talk to anyone with a rank lower than Colonel." And that's how the incident ended. So, us lowly soldiers were to have nothing to do with even the rank and file settlers.

At first we didn't have many encounters with the settlers. They would walk by us on the way to prayers. But on occasion, we would be sent out to guard other parts of the city and our encounters with them increased. On more than one occasion I saw young settler children kick a passing Arab and call him "dirty pig" or some such curse. As I noted earlier, we were forbidden to intervene.

What rankled was how the settlers seemed to take our presence for granted. Many times when we were on tours of duty in the territories, Israelis from neighboring towns would come to us and bring us cake and cookies on the Sabbath. It seems like such a little thing, but considering the lousy food we had to put up with, being isolated and far from home, those little sweets were an expression of gratitude that just made us feel good. But unless you wore a kippa (skullcap) and therefore were invited to celebrate the Sabbath with them, the Hebron settlers usually ignored us, looking through us as if we didn't exist.