A group of Jewish settlers in Hebroninsulted and threatened a visiting
German parliamentary delegation
touring the West Bank city on Thursday.
The German embassy in Israel protested
to the Foreign Ministry that
Israel Defense Forces soldiers and
police officers did nothing to stop
the settlers' attacks. The German group cut short its visit to
the city after the incident.
The IDF declined to comment on the incident, while the
Israeli embassy in Berlin issued an apology.
Seven members of the German parliament's law committee
toured Hebron, the West Bank's largest city. The IDF
controls the center of the city to protect several hundred
Jewish settlers living there.
At the start of the visit, the legislators were cursed, insulted
and threatened by a small group of settlers, the visitors said
in a statement on Thursday.
"The Israeli police and army showed no
willingness to step in and said they couldn't
guarantee the safety of the delegation,"
the statement said. "In order to give the
peace process a chance, the members of
the law committee, as friends of Israel,
appeal to the Israeli authorities to rein
in the fanaticism of Jewish settlers."
The legislators, headed by German Green Party deputy
Jerzy Montag, leader of a German-Israeli parliamentary
group, said the settlers swore at them, threatened them,
called them "Nazis" and poured paint on their cars.
Following the attacks the delegation members decided
to cut their visit short and left Hebron. They said were so
shocked and upset that they considered leaving
Israel immediately in protest.
The Israeli ambassador in Germany, Yoram Ben-Zeev,
spoke to the lawmakers by phone and expressed his regret
for the incident. Ben-Zeev said he will meet personally
with every committee member in the delegation upon
their return to Germany this week, to express his feelings
and to apologize.
The German embassy in Israel protested to the
Foreign Ministry in the name of the German government,
saying the IDF soldiers at the site did nothing to stop the settlers.
"We're still looking into the circumstances
of the incident," a senior Foreign Ministry source
said. "This is not the first time that such things
have happened and we can only regret it, especially
since these are great friends of Israel."
A Foreign Ministry official said members of the German
delegation called the ministry for help during the incident.
The ministry contacted police and asked them to intervene,
but by that time the delegation had already left.
Foreign Ministry officials said the delegation did not
coordinate their Hebron visit with Israeli authorities,
and therefore no preparations had been made for their arrival.
However, German diplomats said the Israeli embassy in
Berlin had been given complete details of the visit even
before the lawmakers arrived in Israel.
Noam Arnon, the spokesman for Hebron's settlers,
said that while he does not agree or sympathize with the
settlers' actions in this incident, "one must take into
consideration that these were not innocent tourists."
The parliamentarian were accompanied by "an extreme
left-wing organization that incites to drive the Jewish
settlers out of Hebron and slanders the IDF and Israel,"
Arnon said. "It's like the tours of the National Jewish
Front I used to lead in Arab villages."
Arnon invited the "representatives of European states"
to visit Hebron without the "hostile escort" to see things
as they really were.
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