R and I set out, and were walking near the Beit Hadassa settlement, at around midnight. All of a sudden a teenage boy ran out, yelling something agrily at us in Hebrew. He threw a cup of cold water at my back. He then threw the plastic cup, which missed.
This in itself is not surprising. Settler harassment of international and Israeli activists who stand in solidarity with Palestinians is unfortunately a very common occurence. Many ISMers and CPTers have been sworn at, and I have dodged rocks and water last year, as have many others.
Sometimes however, the attacks are more serious. Although this happens rarely, settlers have sometimes seriously physically assaulted activists. In 2010, a group of masked settlers attacked me and a fellow activist from Denmark. Using a metal pipe, they broke my nose and badly bruised his leg. There have been some activists who have had their arms broken in these assaults.
Of course, settler attacks target not only internationals and Israelis. Their main targets are Palestinians. Unlike Israeli and international victims of these assaults, Palestinians have actually sometimes been killed. Settlers who kill Palestinians don't need to worry in most cases about the worldwide condemnation that would come if for example a North American or European activist was killed.
As I turned around to get a photo of the kid, I saw something very worrying.. About a block away from him, an attack was definitely being planned. Four big men, all dressed in white, were walking towards us. When they saw that we were observing them, they began to put some kind of white fabric to cover up their facial features and picked up the pace. It was very clear they were planning to attack, Covering their faces woukd mask their identities, so they could do what they wanted to us with more or less anonymity. When my friend and I were attacked by settlers in 2010, they wore black balaclavas. This time they were all dressed in white, but the intent was the same.
R and I began to run, and we took off into a Palestinian neighbourhood. The masked settlers did not follow. As our Palestinian friends told us in the past, they would not enter a Palestinian neighbourhood late at night, at least not without the Army or police present.
A Palestinian man let us into his house. He and his two sons took us in, and offered us coffee as they listened to our story. They offered us a place to sleep for the night. We are very grateful to them, they saved us from what could have been a very ugly situation.
However, it was also not a perfect visit. One of the boys in the family, who looked to be fourteen, tried to kiss R when I was in the washroom. After R said no to him, he didn't ask again, however the father was periodically glancing at her breasts.
The boy also did earlier ask me, when he felt his Dad wasn't looking, if I "like sex with girls" (we communicated back and forth using Google Translate, since their English and our Arabic were both at very poor levels). I didn't respond, but gave him what I call "the teacher look", and he got the message. Not to defend his behaviour, but he is fourteen and in a society where people of different genders who are unrelated don't mix often, perhaps he was just being curious.
Regardless, R was understandably feeling very uncomfortable, but going home was out of the question. She asked me if we could sleep in the same room and I thought it was a good idea. We said we are married and both slept in the living room, of course not on the same mattress. I hate lying, especially to someone who took us in, however given the situation, it was probably the best thing to do.
We left early the next day.
R and I are OK, but after this meeting the group decided that more people are needed on Shuhada at night, not only two. We also agreed to take other precautions, which I will not discuss on here.
I can easily say that this was the most terifying event I have experienced so far in Palestine, or anywhere else on earth. This includes the time when I was beaten up for real.
I thank God that R and I were not beaten up. I pray that one day every Palestinian and Israeli will be able to walk down this stree- and everywhere else in the Holy Land, without fear of violence.
The Israeli settler kid (further down the street) who threw water at us, turning his back and walking away. About a block behind him were 4 masked settlers, who were coming towards us.
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