Masked youth threw stones at police in Hebron
Photo: Reuters
Hypocrisy in Hebron
Since when do Hebron settlers care about legal niceties?
The goings-on in Hebron in recent days are certainly no surprise. Therefore, there is no great need to discuss the predictable and familiar outbursts of violence, lawlessness, self-righteousness, wickedness and obscene use of children.
The State of Israel agrees that the issue in question is "Jewish property," but refuses to validate the settlers' invasion.
But a certain feature has crept into the current performance that should merit at least a bit of our attention: The galling nerve of these vandals to see themselves as the inheritors of "Jewish property" or "Jewish land" in Hebron, - and, essentially, everywhere.
Legal niceties
In theory, we are speaking about a strictly legal issue. The squatters in the Hebron marketplace say the market is built on "Jewish land", and therefore they say they have a right to be there.
Hebron Riost
Efrat Weiss
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There is something so disturbing as to cause offense to the intelligence in the settlers', and the country's, sudden concern for the law.
Since when do Hebron settlers care who the registered owners of the land are? Whenever they feel like making life hell for one of the neighbors, kicking them out of their homes or taking over "Arab property", no legal argument in the world can dissuade them from their unholy goal.
For example, the Sharvati family from Hebron has lived on their property for 200 years. But this fact was not enough to dissuade Jewish rioters who decided to squat in the neighborhood.
Selective country
The State of Israel, too, is pretty selective when it comes to using the law before raising a hand to other people's property.
When the property in question is Arab property – neither title deeds nor land registration documents nor any other official documentation leaves a great impression.
Take tens of thousands of property owners in Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Acco, Beer Sheva, the West Bank, the Galilee, the Negev, Golan Heights, the coastal region and every other region of the country. They can wipe their bottoms with their proof of ownership documents, simply for the unhappy fact that they are Arab.
Because "Arab property," we learned a long time ago, is no more than a temporary deposit, until such time as the Jewish owners return to reclaim the property.
Jewish Cossacks
Even if we innocently assume that we are speaking about a legal question. In whose name, or the name of what perverse legal logic, do these Jewish Cossacks have the right to stake claims to this property?
The real estate in question was purchased in 1807 by Rabbi Chaim Yeshua Baggio from the Kashkol family. He purchased the land with his private money. The property has never been sold.
In Tel Aviv, there is a man named Mr. Chaim Baggio, a descendent of Rabbi Chaim Baggio – the last rabbi of the Jewish community in Hebron and a direct descendant of Rabbi Chaim Yeshua Baggio.
That is to say, if anyone has a clear right of inheritance to this property – he does.
Not because he is Jewish, not because the real estate in question is "Jewish property," but only because the laws of inheritance and acquisition.
Does legal reasoning not require us to ask the true inheritors of the property what they think of the whippersnappers that have suddenly appeared on their property?
But these sorts of legalistic niceties don't bother the settlers. According to them, most of the Middle East – from Ur Kasdim to Pitom and Ra'amses (See Exodus chapter one) – is "Jewish land," and they are the rightful heirs.
Joint stake
And so there would seem to be no reason to bother the justice department with the pointless argument about these whippersnappers. Better to let them know that they are not the only Jews in the world.
And the rest of us, who haven't yet lost our sanity or our values, also have a stake in "Jewish property."
And in the name of that stake, the rest of us heirs demand that they get the hell out of the Hebron area immediately. Not because they are Jews, and not because they are not Jews, but rather because they are a stain and an embarrassment on our entire family, wild vandals who lack both control and culture.
Their rightful place is behind bars, or in re-education centers that will re—train them to enter human society.
