Members of the grassroots Women in Green movement had their cars vandalized this morning while showing support for the soldiers guarding the entrances to Jerusalem.
The group of women makes weekly trips to the Jerusalem checkpoints, offering moral support as well as cold drinks and snacks to the IDF personnel stationed there. The roadblocks are the last line of defense between hostile PA-controlled areas and downtown Jerusalem.
Recently, Women in Green activists have also been distributing informational leaflets that outline soldiers' rights when dealing with the harassment or incitement of extreme-left organizations. The soldiers are particularly subject to this treatment from "Machsom Watch" - a women's group that targets checkpoint soldiers and threatens them with legal action if their search of Arabs wishing to cross into Israel's pre-1967 borders is deemed by them to be "too thorough."
This morning, the Women in Green activists paid a successful visit to the checkpoint at the southern entrance to Jerusalem, just outside of Bethlehem. They then made their way to the A-Ram checkpoint at the city' s northern entrance. Nadia Matar, co-founder of Women in Green, told Israel National Radio's Malkah Fleisher what happened next: "We parked our cars nearby and walked to the IDF checkpoint, where we were for 10 minutes. When we came back, we found that every tire on all [three] of our cars had been slashed."
Matar was speaking as she waited with 15 other activists at a nearby mechanic's garage for their cars to be repaired. "We were not in the middle of Ramallah," she stressed, "but were rather parked in a neighborhood within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries. This is an area that is populated by Israeli-Arabs who hold Israeli citizenship and identification cards, but actively support the enemy. Obviously our work supporting the soldiers does not please them."
Matar said that Women in Green will continue to expand its efforts in support of IDF soldiers manning checkpoints across Israel, and promised they would not be deterred by Arab violence or vandalism: "If they think they will scare us off, they are wrong. Next time, we'll come with 30 cars instead of three"
The group of women makes weekly trips to the Jerusalem checkpoints, offering moral support as well as cold drinks and snacks to the IDF personnel stationed there. The roadblocks are the last line of defense between hostile PA-controlled areas and downtown Jerusalem.
Recently, Women in Green activists have also been distributing informational leaflets that outline soldiers' rights when dealing with the harassment or incitement of extreme-left organizations. The soldiers are particularly subject to this treatment from "Machsom Watch" - a women's group that targets checkpoint soldiers and threatens them with legal action if their search of Arabs wishing to cross into Israel's pre-1967 borders is deemed by them to be "too thorough."
This morning, the Women in Green activists paid a successful visit to the checkpoint at the southern entrance to Jerusalem, just outside of Bethlehem. They then made their way to the A-Ram checkpoint at the city' s northern entrance. Nadia Matar, co-founder of Women in Green, told Israel National Radio's Malkah Fleisher what happened next: "We parked our cars nearby and walked to the IDF checkpoint, where we were for 10 minutes. When we came back, we found that every tire on all [three] of our cars had been slashed."
Matar was speaking as she waited with 15 other activists at a nearby mechanic's garage for their cars to be repaired. "We were not in the middle of Ramallah," she stressed, "but were rather parked in a neighborhood within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries. This is an area that is populated by Israeli-Arabs who hold Israeli citizenship and identification cards, but actively support the enemy. Obviously our work supporting the soldiers does not please them."
Matar said that Women in Green will continue to expand its efforts in support of IDF soldiers manning checkpoints across Israel, and promised they would not be deterred by Arab violence or vandalism: "If they think they will scare us off, they are wrong. Next time, we'll come with 30 cars instead of three"