By Michael Freund, Jerusalem Post—
It is a short clip, barely 24 seconds long, that was neither filmed professionally nor with a steady hand. But perhaps because the footage is so raw and so shocking, and the reality that it reveals is so brutal, is what makes it essential viewing for every Israeli.
The video was taken on January 10, when Border Police officers and soldiers once again returned to Homesh, the Jewish community that was needlessly destroyed as part of Ariel Sharon’s 2005 expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and northern Samaria.
A yeshiva student, Yehuda Smotrich, can be seen lying down passively, as officers kick, punch and scream at him before lustily and violently wrenching him upward off the ground.
Back on December 16, when Palestinian terrorists opened fire on an Israeli car near Homesh, murdering 25-year-old Yehuda Dimentman and leaving his 9-month-old baby an orphan, Smotrich sat alongside the victim, his friend, and cradled him in his arms as he lay dying.
Earlier this week, Smotrich found himself cradling on the ground as he was senselessly beaten by fellow Jews for daring to study Torah at Homesh.
So even as Palestinian Arabs are busy erecting thousands of illegal structures throughout Judea and Samaria in a brazen attempt to seize large swathes of Area C, which is controlled by Israel, the government chose to focus its efforts this past week on trying to eliminate the Jewish presence at Homesh.
It marked the third time in the past month that Israeli forces were deployed to Homesh to wreak havoc on the yeshiva, which has operated at the site daily for the past 15 years.
We know about this incident because Yehuda Smotrich just happens to be the nephew of Religious Zionist MK Bezalel Smotrich, who retweeted the video. Otherwise, it might never have come to light.
“This is my righteous nephew who was miraculously saved during the terror attack in Homesh,” MK Smotrich wrote, adding, “He was in the car when Yehuda Dimentman, may the Lord avenge him, returned his soul to its Maker in his arms.”
The tweet further noted that, “after his soul was wounded in the terror attack, today his entire body was wounded when he received kicks, beatings and punches from the police sent by the Government of Israel merely because he lied down on the ground of Homesh.”
This is nothing less than an absolute outrage and it should shock the consciences of us all.
Whatever one thinks of the right of Jews to live in northern Samaria, we can all agree that a passive protester exercising his democratic right to protest government policy does not deserve to be pounced upon, battered and maltreated. Continue Reading…
