Thursday, February 09, 2006

TIPH TIFF -- How the Palestinians shot themselves in the foot. Again.

After Dr. Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Arabs worshippers in Me'arat HaMachpelah 12 years ago in Hevron, the international community was up in arms.

They demanded international protection for Hevron's Arab population from the Jewish settlers. Israel compromised, and allowed an observer presence through the formation of TIPH, The Temporary International Presence in Hevron. (Israelis pronounce it, TIPA)

The Jews in Hevron never really liked this organization that much; they viewed TIPH as subjective, with a clear bias learning towards the Arabs. As much as the Hevron Jewish community tried to show TIPH that they should look at both sides of the issue of coexistance in Hevron, they always got the feeling of residual hostility from TIPH.

Fast Forward to yesterday.

The infamous Denmark cartoon incident apparently inflamed pan-Islamic passion so much, that Hevron's Arab community turned its anger towards......TIPH !!

Does that makes any sense whatsoever?

YNETNEWS reports:

Some 300 Palestinians attacked the TIPH building, throwing stones, smashing windows and trying to set the building on fire in protest over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad wearing a bomb-like turban first published in Denmark and later reprinted in newspapers across Europe.

Sixty unarmed mission members were in the building at the time, said Gunhild Forselv, a spokeswoman for TIPH, which serves as a buffer between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the volatile city.

The mission'shead decided to leave the West Bank city despite apologies by Palestinian Authority officials and guarantees to boost police presence around the building.

The mission announced that all its 73 members, outraged by the destruction caused to the building, will be leaving Hebron in the coming few hours.

What the heck were they thinking?

The Hevron Jewish community sent a farewell letter to TIPH as a result, wishing them well, with best of luck in the future.



Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

After Dr. Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Arabs worshippers in Me'arat HaMachpelah 12 years ago in Hevron...

Oh really???
Before jumping to conclusions, please read this:

http://www.barrychamish.com/html/baruch_goldstein.html

Sam@Jerusalem

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

Sam@Jerusalem:

I know all the theories. Big deal. Its irrelavent to my posting...

Besides, even though he may have some valid points about different things, he's way off the deep end on many others.

tafka PP said...

Jameel... I think I might have actually been RUDER about the Palestinian rioters in my post than you were in this one...

Oh my, I'd better go lie down.

Lab Rab said...

Just curious Jameel ... I've been to Chevron a few times and never heard of TIPH. My impression was that the Israeli army was responsible for keeping order. Was TIPH just an open secret, or a sham?

I'll never forget that fiasco with the UN troops up in Lebanon a few years back. International presence in Israel has neither been militarily effective nor morally upright.

[BTW I just sent those regards you asked me to send. They were much appreciated.]

Mar Gavriel said...

Who, exactly, is the dominant power in TIPH? The United Nations?

bec said...

doesn't it make you feel like running around yelling "I TOLD YOU SO!" to the rest of the world?
i'm not at all shocked by this. it was only a matter of time until they got in on the act. hopefully, (and i'm sure i've said this before, but i don't know where)the rest of the world will see this population for who they really are.

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

LabRab: Thanks for sending the regards! Muchly appreciated!

TIPH was strictly an observer force..sort of like the Red Cross, but with zero actual responsibility for anything. They were unarmed, and all the did was run around with notebooks and cameras. Most of the time, you never saw them; though the Jewish community saw them from time to time.

I'll try to drop you and email with more info.

MG: They didn't really have a dominant power, since TIPH never did anything (but get of the case of the Jews in Hevron). 2 TIPH volunteers were murdered in a pigua 3 years ago...also by Arab terrorists. But I seem to recall that they excuse given was that the terrorists thought they were targeting Jews...

BEC: No one cares if we say "told you so"...they'll continue to ignore us.

Anyway - a shabbat shalom to all!

Anonymous said...

This is not surprising in the least. What is surprising is that every time we expect these people to act human, we are somehow disappointed when they do not. The muslim response to everything is violence first. It was only a matter of time until it tured againt their so-called protectors.

JoeSettler said...

They had very nice white SUVs, and used to write very dumb reports on Hebron.

JoeSettler said...

It reminds me of when I used to spend time in Gaza.

We occassionally had to deal with UN officers who enjoyed being obnoxious to us in various ways.

One day, the head of their mission (a general of some sort) came over to me and my soldiers and apologized for his and his people's behavior.

I asked why.

He said that all this time he had a certain impression of what was going on, who he was dealing with, who the bad guys were, and so on.

Apparently that day the Gazans were upset about something (no clue as to what) and they started attacking UN vehicles and offices all over Gaza City.

His people (there solely to help the Gazans and interfere with IDF missions) were completely terrified.

His really nice car got smashed up while he was in it.

He said that until that point he never understood who and what we (Israel) were dealing with.

He was nice to us whenever we ran into him again (though a number of his people must have left right after that, because we never saw them again).

elizmr said...

This event should have gotten a LOT more press than it did. http://alnaharotbavel.blogspot.com/

The back of the hill said...

These Leftist "peace" groups just don't get it. Arabs are violent and irrational people.

Beware of making generalizations, even if they do contain an infinitisimal grain of truth. Remember, our side has repeatedly gotten in deep shit because of generalizations made about us - in German, Russian, French.... and every other language.

Besides, are you saying Arabs are from Dixie?

AMSHINOVER said...

As Abba Eban once said, Palestinians "never miss an
opportunity to miss an opportunity."

JJ said...

Yeah, I almost had to laugh when I first read about this story in the paper. How does that song go...

"Isn't it ironic...don't you think...
A little too ironic...yeah I really do think..."

Ayelet said...

Jameel, I think it's time for the word verification annoyance. How do you big bloggers manage to go on without it when my pathetic corner of the 'sphere was plagued from day 1? Anyhow, maybe you could help me with some Questions. I'd appreciate you input.

Batya said...

You don't have to be a Barry Chamish to disbelieve the Goldstein story. and you don't have to be a kachnik either.

But it's obvious that the Arabs don't think like "we" do, and not even all Jews nor Israelis think like "we" do and I don't think many people think like I do.

Am I making sense, at least to you? While my husband is entertaining "machers" around the table I am exiled to the computer, since I refuse to play Pat Nixon.

FrumGirl said...

I second DM's statement. Are we really surprised? Wont change anything I assure you.

MC Aryeh said...

Still waiting patiently to actually be surprised by Palestinian reaction to....anything....

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