The grassroots Binyamin Residents’ Council has asked residents of the region to join a new project, “Combat Cameraman,” and train themselves to record violence perpetrated by leftists and Arabs.
In email messages to the residents and advertisements in the local paper, Council Head Lt.-Col. Itzik Shadmi noted that in recent years, extreme left-wing groups have been waging a fierce “war of consciousness” against the IDF and the Jewish residents. The struggle takes place in the media and the courts, wrote Shadmi, where the leftists enjoy sympathy and preferential treatment.
“Among the means they use are video cameras with which they record events over time and then edit the recordings and isolate the moments which make the Jews or the soldiers look bad. These films are then broadcast in the Israeli media and in the international media, and enjoy popularity among Jew-haters.”
“We in the Binyamin Residents’ Council have decided that it is time to fight back. The Council is interested in residents of all ages who have video cameras and are willing to take part.”
Shadmi says that the initial targets of the camera-wielding activists will be the rioters at Bil’in and the Machsom Watch women, who interfere with the activities of the soldiers who man the IDF checkpoints.
“Our objective is to create a ‘balance of fear’ vis-à-vis the violent leftist rioters who themselves will be exposed to the documentation of their criminal activity. Disseminating these videos in the media will help us expose their true face,” he wrote.
The Binyamin residents thus join their brothers and sisters to the north, in Shomron, who recently initiated a similar program.