A policeman beat and arrested a Jewish guard in the southern Samaria town of Neriah after the latter did not allow a police car carrying Peace Now leaders to enter.
Arutz-7's request for a police comment on the matter has not been answered.
Sources in Neriah reported the chain of events as follows: A car arrived this morning at the gate of the Zayit Raanan neighborhood in Neriah, in the Binyamin region near Modiin. A uniformed policeman sat in front, and next to him a plain-clothed policeman. In the back, the guard recognized Yariv Oppenheimer, the director of the left-wing organization Peace Now, and Hagit Ofran, head of Peace Now's settlement construction tracking committee.
Peace Now has made it its goal to ensure the end of Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. To this end, it backs all peace initiatives that involve an Israeli withdrawal from these areas, reports on Jewish settlement initiatives there, sues in court against Jewish construction, and more.
The guard at the gate asked the occupants of the car to identify themselves, as is the norm in Neriah because of the security situation – especially in light of three robberies that took place this past Sabbath in Neriah, in which weapons, large sums of money and property were stolen.
The four occupants, including the policemen, refused to produce identification, whereupon the guard refused to open the gate. The law in Judea and Samaria is that town guards may require identification before allowing persons to enter.
The policemen – whose names were later learned to be Barak Arusi and Shlomi Bechar – got out of the car, and were soon joined by another police car. At least one of the policemen reportedly hit the guard, took his weapon, and arrested him.
A lawyer from the Honenu civil rights organization met the guard in the police station. Hours after the arrest, a Neriah source told Israel National News that "the police realize they messed themselves up and are about to release him."
The Binyamin Residents Committee issued a harsh statement of complaint: "This is an unprecedented scandal, whose gravity cannot be overstated, in which the Israel Police has become the servant of a radical left-wing organization, beating law-abiding citizens in their name. We see once again that the police are the biggest and most dangerous law-breakers around."
The Committee has asked Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch of the Israel Our Home party to immediately investigate who in the police department knew of this attempt to sneak Peace Now people into Neriah under police auspices.
Doron Ben-Yehuda, head of the Neriah town secretariat, bemoaned the incident in a talk with Arutz-7: "The guard attempted to prevent the Peace Now people from entering in order to prevent the provocations that he foresaw… The director of Peace Now is not expected to arrive with the police. Who could have given such an order? … The residents here are suffering from Arab burglaries of late, and in general we feel abandoned."