Tension ruined the Sabbath for Jews in Hevron as leftists marched through a Jewish neighborhood and accused Jews of violence. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
According to a local source, the anarchists shouted insults and called for the removal of Jews from the city as they blocked streets and harassed passersby while they marched. Local Arabs among them accused Jews of interfering with their olive harvest.
Police eventually chased them away, arresting several marchers who refused to leave. Remand for three of the detainees was extended Saturday night by a <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
Rights activist Baruch Marzel said in response to the incident that the leftists were trying to set off riots among the Arabs of the city against the Jews. Marzel noted that leftists appeared to have edited out aggression by Arabs against Jews in film footage of what was reported to be a "one-sided" confrontation in an olive grove near Hevron.
Four Jewish men were filmed by AP Television News on Saturday during an altercation with Arabs in an olive grove on Saturday near Hevron. The Arabs were picking olives at the time, without authorization and in an area that had been marked as a closed military zone.
The Jews were caught on camera punching and kicking Arab photographer Abed Hashlamoun of the EPA news agency, who had begun to photograph them. One of the Jews was filmed punching 53-year-old Janet Benvie, a British left-wing activist who tried to grab the camera back from him.
The film also showed Hashlamoun hurling a rock at one of the Jews after he had been attacked.
"The Hevron police treats the left with silk gloves, and if things continue like this we will be forced to make them properly enforce the law," Marzel warned.
The Hevron Jewish Community Council meanwhile called on police in a statement to ban leftists from the city and to carry out intelligence-gathering operations aimed at preventing future incidents such as the scene that occurred in Tel Rumeida Saturday morning.
"We consider the attempts by leftists to impose a desecration of the Shabbat on our community to be a very serious issue," read the statement. "The incident on Shabbat was nothing more than a leftist provocation. There has never been violence surrounding the olive harvest, and Arabs have never in the past needed the help of leftists or even police to conduct the harvest.
"The provocations on Shabbat, which included filming religious Jews as they returned from synagogue…. must be prevented in the future," the Council said, adding that it would file a complaint with the police in connection with the incident.
Hevron police officials recently have stated that anarchists and leftists try to stir up trouble and are more dangerous that nationalist groups.