Human Rights and Jewish organizations everywhere must vociferously declare their outrage that a Jewish family was brutalized as they slept quietly in the night, mother and children beaten, her infant child torn from her arms,
The issue, in essence, is that the Federmans are settlers.
and her teenage daughter’s finger broken. Israeli and American Jewish media have remained silent as a force of Yassam police smashed windows over sleeping children, cursing and punching mother and children, destroying furniture, clothing, books and personal mementos of 18 years of marriage, and then bulldozed their home.

The mother, Elisheva Federman, in tears, sobbed, “The house was filled with screaming and yelling. The children began to get hysterical and ran to my room. I asked the Yassam police to let me talk to them and calm them down. They didn’t let me, and just yelled, ‘Get out, get out, get out!’” She continued, “They hit me and my children systematically. I am now totally bruised up. I am not sure if my daughter’s hand is not broken.” Elisheva, her teenage daughter and her husband Noam were arrested, only to be released shortly thereafter.

The Federman home, located on their farm between Kiryat Arba and Hebron, is on land the current government of Israel has classified as an illegal outpost. The Federmans say they legally purchased the land 10 years ago, own it, and have lived in that very house with their nine children for the past two years. Their farm is a meeting place for neighboring children, with its chickens, goats and welcoming environment.

The issue, in essence, is that the Federmans are settlers and have been ceaselessly castigated by Israel’s Leftist media and by politically ambitious demagogues as extremists and obstacles to peace. The Federmans are motivated by their belief in their right as Jews to live in Israel’s ancient heartland. Thus, they purchased their farm to be near the cave of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Israel’s Biblical forefathers.

Subsequent to the recent failure of Tzipi Livni to form a governing coalition, an atmosphere of intense political positioning ensued, causing leading political personalities to demonstrate their resolve in dealing with settler issues. An order was issued to expel the Federmans from their home and demolish it. The Yassam police force was selected for the job.

The Yassam, nominally a special anti-riot, anti-terrorist police force attached to the Israeli army, are most well known in Israel for their excessive brutality, as evidenced in Amona. Ordered to breakup what began as a peaceful demonstration by Jewish teenagers and several Knesset members against home demolitions, the Yassam, mounted on horseback, charged into the crowd wielding billy clubs, breaking bones, fracturing skulls, sending many seriously wounded to hospitals, and leaving some with lifelong injuries. These forces, ostensibly trained to deal with riots and terrorism, planned a midnight surprise for the Federmans, while mother, father and children slept quietly.

Serious and troubling questions remain concerning these actions and demand they be addressed. Why was a force trained to deal with riots and terrorism selected for this job? Why in the middle of the night? And why the
Why was a force trained to deal with riots and terrorism selected for this job?
excessive brutality against mother and children? More perplexing, why would a government so sensitive about the impact of demolishing a family’s home that it has refused even to demolish the home of the terrorist that recently murdered eight yeshiva students at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, or the home of the terrorist who murdered three and critically wounded seven others with a bulldozer in Jerusalem, order the demolition of a Jewish family's home? Who in fact issued these orders? And how has the Supreme Court responded?

As neighbors heard the nearby commotion and gathered, they were overwhelmed by the excessive use of violence against this hapless family. Their anger raged and a hot-headed friend of the Federman’s cursed at the Yassam police; and was immediately arrested. Though he apologized upon his release, his outburst became the focus of the news reports the following day. Headlines in the Israeli and the American Jewish press reported that settlers cursed Israeli soldiers performing an operation, and that Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak expressed their anger at the settler’s actions.

There was barely a word about the Federmans, their children and the family’s plight.