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Revision as of 22:54, 29 October 2012
| The Death of Yehuda Shoham | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Second Intifada | |
 The attack site | |
| Location | Eli, West Bank |
| Date | June 5, 2001 |
| Attack type | Stoning attack |
| Weapons | Large rock |
| Deaths | five-month-old American-Israeli infant |
| Perpetrators | Unknown Palestinian assailants |
The Death of Yehuda Shoham occurred after on 5 June 2001 Palestinian threw stones at a civilian vehicle, near the Israeli settlement of Eli in the West Bank, in which the five-month-old American-Israeli Yehuda Shoham was seated. The stones entered through the car's windscreen and crushed the infant's skull. Shoham eventually died of severe brain damage on 11 July 2001.
This stoning attack and Yehuda's six-day struggle for life made headlines in Israel. In a letter to the United Nations, Israel's permanent representative wrote of the incident as a "reprehensible act of terrorism", noting that it followed Israel's declaration that it would desist from military action against Palestinian targets, and that PLO leader Yasser Arafat had undertaken to stop violence and terrorism.
The attack
The incident occurred as Benny and Batsheva Shoham and their only child Yehuda approached Eli after paying a shiva call in Ra'anana.
Near Eli, Palestinians hiding at the roadside hurled rocks at the car which broke through the car's windscreen and crushed the infant's skull. The father continued driving, worried about an ambush, and at a nearby intersection, the couple noticed their baby's head injuries. Batsheva performed mouth to mouth resuscitation on Yehuda until the arrival of paramedics.
Yehuda was taken to an intensive care unit at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where he lay unconscious and with severe head injuries. He was attached to a respirator for nearly a week before dying of severe brain damage on July 11, as did an 18-year-old Palestinian security agent whose skull had been fractured by a rubber-coated Israeli bullet earlier on the same day Yehuda was wounded.
During his time in the hospital, Yehuda's parents gave him a second name, "Chaim," which means life, hoping that he would live. While in the hospital, Yehuda was visited by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Background
The Second Intifada, which began 8 months earlier, marked a period of intensified Palestinian-Israeli violence. On May 22, Sharon declared a unilateral ceasefire and refrained from retaliating against against Palestinian attacks. On Friday, June 1, a suicide bombing outside a Tel Aviv disco occurred which killed 21 people, mainly Israeli teenagers who had immigrated from Russia. The day after, Saturday, June 2, Yasser Arafat's call for a cease-fire staved off Israeli retaliation.
Aftermath
In the meantime, Israel took a variety of measures to reduce tension, with Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer citing a "significant reduction in the number of attacks". Though Palestinians would be subject to strict closure confining them to their towns, Israel eased some travel restrictions and Palestinians were to be allowed to return from Jordan and Egypt, raw materials would be permitted to enter and exit the Palestinian territories, and Palestinians would be allowed to return to their jobs in an industrial zone near the Erez crossing point. Palestinian security commanders traveled to trouble spots in the Gaza Strip to consult with local officers over the cease-fire enforcement.
When news of Yehuda's wounding spread on Tuesday, June 5, Sharon began to be urged by far-right settlers to retaliate. The incident angered Israel's 200,000 settlers who urged Ariel Sharon to end Israel's "policy of restraint", and abandon the ceasefire. The Independent suggested that the incident would be cited by many Israelis as reason for stepping up military measures. The morning after Yehuda's wounding, at least 300 settlers, arriving in buses, assailed two villages adjacent to Shiloh, Assawiya, and Luban al-Sharkiya, which lay under curfew and within Israel's security responsibility, and, according to B'tselem, in the presence of, and according to local testimony, with the assistance of the IDF, fired a wheat harvest, a hothouse, a carpentry shop and a school, stole tools and shot a Palestinian youth in the stomach or the leg. There were rock-throwing battles between settlers and Palestinians at the site of the attack on the Shohams' car during which one Israeli and seven Palestinians were injured. In addition, settlers in Hebron also attacked local Palestinian shopkeepers. The settlers had been a focal target of Palestinian militancy during an eight-month uprising. Two settlers were arrested by Israeli police as a result of the riots.
Though reluctant to become involved in the conflict, the U.S. dispatched C.I.A. director George Tenet, who was scheduled to meet separately with the Israeli and Palestinian sides on Thursday, June 7, in order to re-establish co-operation on security issues between the two parties, which had broken down after the IDF had shot at the car of the Gaza Strip security chief Mohammad Dahlan in mid-April, and had fired on the home of their West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub in late May. Tenet's visit backed up an effort by the European Union to seize on Arafat's declaration in order to transform the ceasefire into a genuine halt to the reciprocal blood-letting. On Wednesday, June 6, the eve of Tenet's scheduled visit, the IDF announced it would award medals to the commanders and troops serving at Netzarim Junction, where the child, Mohammed al-Dura had been shot dead. The news was seen as a blow to the restoration of trust. Thousands of demonstrators protested in Jerusalem against what they termed Sharon's "restraint policy". That same evening, Palestinians were outraged when Sharon called Arafat a "murderer" and "pathological liar" in an interview addressing the Russian community that had been angered at his failure to retaliate for the disco bombing. The broadcast was carried on Israeli television. Though given the red-carpet treatment abroad, he added, Arafat did not act like a head of state but rather like the chief of terrorists and murderers.
On Thursday, June 7, speaking to reporters at a rally urging Ariel Sharon to retaliate for the attack on Yehuda and other recent attacks, Yehuda's father said "Unfortunately, our government is showing a lot of weakness in its response to terrorism". He also declared:
This is our land, these are our roads, and if we are afraid of driving to Tel Aviv and Netanya also.
Negotiations, Funeral and Reactions
Tenet’s meeting with both sides was postponed until Sunday, June 10, after the Americans realized the extent of their differences. Matters were buffeted by the killing of three Bedouin women, struck by Israeli tank shells while in their tents in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, and the critical injuries sustained by an Islamic Jihad member in a car-bombing, which the group suspected as being the work of Israel. He proposed that Israel desist from attacking Palestinian targets and withdraw to the positions they held on September 28, 2000. He asked Palestinians to thwart attacks on Israeli positions, to end what Israelis view as incitement in the media, and to proceed to arrest militant gunmen.
On Monday, June 11, the day Yehuda died, the Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met the Palestinian minister for international co-operation, Nabil Shaath in Luxembourg to explore a compromise. Tenet eventually presided over a tense 4-hour meeting the following day, which was broken off after the gaps failed to be bridged. The Israelis insisted on the arrest of people they suspected of terrorism before they would allow a cooling-off period, while the Palestinians demanded that security arrangements be followed by an Israeli pledge to freeze to all construction in settlements in the occupied territories. The Palestinians refused to conduct what they called arbitrary arrests. The chief of staff of the Israeli army, General Shaul Mofaz, called the truce itself an optical illusion.
The funeral procession for Yehuda began with settlers gathering in front of Ariel Sharon's office in Jerusalem with the child's body carried before them. As Sharon stepped up to a podium to address them, settlers shouted "Vengeance!" and "Go to war". Prime Minister Sharon spoke to the funeral procession outside his office, and, acknowledging the settlers' impatience with a ceasefire, said:
If we stand firm and grit our teeth, and carry on even when the tears are choking us, we will win... I am not here to make a speech, but to weep, to weep together with you. May the memory of Yehuda be blessed.
Sharon also asked for prayers for the infant, and condemned the Palestinian Authority for inciting violence.
From there the procession walked to the northern West Bank settlement of Shilo where Yehuda was buried.
One of Yehuda's cousins said, "Yehuda was just a baby, without sin or enemy, yet he was killed for one reason only, he was a Jew on his way home in Eretz Yisrael ." In a letter to the United Nations, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations Yehuda Lancry outlined Israel’s position, which affirmed that the death of Yehuda Shoham constituted a “reprehensible act of terrorism” that took place just over two week after Israel had declared that it would refrain from initiating military action against Palestinians, and barely a week after Yassir Arafat had undertaken to fight violence and terrorism.
In Yehuda's memory, his parents decided to collect donations for dormitories at the yeshiva in Shiloh. His parents also established the Yehuda Fund in January 2002 "in their son's memory."
References
- "Caught in the cross fire". The Washington Times. Associated Press. September 11, 2002. Retrieved August 9, 2012.
- ^ "Yehuda Shoham". MFA. Retrieved August 7, 2012.
- ^ Lefkovits, Etgar (06-07-2001). "'It's as if we've been abandoned'". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved August 7, 2012.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Reeves, Phil (June 12, 2001). "Settlers' baby dies after Palestinian stoning". The Independent. Retrieved August 7, 2012.
- ^ "Letter dated 11 June 2001 from the Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General" (PDF). UN. Retrieved August 12, 2012.
- Halle, Charlotte. "Disproportionate number of Anglos slain; Olmert praises families' dignity". Haaretz. Retrieved August 7, 2012.
- Singer, David and Grossman, Lawrence (2003). American Jewish Year, Book 2002. VNR AG. p. 561. ISBN 0874951178.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Mid-East ceasefire talks break up, BBC News, 11 Monday, 2001.
- "'Arafat must be defeated,' protesters say. Three Israelis wounded in shooting near Ramallah; Shilo baby fights to survive after stoning". Jerusalem Post. 7 June 2001.
- Philips, Alan (June 12, 2001). "Israeli settlers mourn baby killed in stoning". The Telegraph. Retrieved August 10, 2012.
- ^ "Settlers blame Sharon for baby's death". Hobart Mercury. 13 June 2001. p. 14.
- ^ Mark Lavie, 'U.S. sending CIA director for security talks,' at Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 6 June 2001.
- ^ "Settler rampage makes CIA chief's peace mission harder". The Scotsman. 7 June 2001. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
- ^ Nomi Morris (7 June 2001). "Settlers attack Palestinian village - Injury to baby triggers fury". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved 12 August 2012. Cite error: The named reference "fury" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- Ron Dudai,'Free Rein: Vigilante Settlers and Israel's Non-Enforcement of the Law,', B'tselem, October 2001 pp9-11:'Israeli security forces were present throughout the events but did not prevent the violence. In fact, they prevented Palestinians from defending themselves, and even joined the settlers in their violence. Testimonies given to B’Tselem indicate that the soldiers also prohibited fire engines and ambulances from reaching the scene.'
- "Sharon attack blows away uneasy calm". The Birmingham Post. 7 June 2001.
- Jayson Keyser (6 June 2001). "Sharon supporters warn they're tired of Israeli restraint". Associated Press Archive. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
- ^ Sevareid, Susan (7 June 2001). "Injury to baby triggers rampage by Israeli settlers". Seattle Times. p. A10.
- "Israelis urge Sharon to End Restraint Plan". Press of Atlantic City. 7 June 2001. p. A3.
- ^ Mid-East ceasefire talks break up, BBC News 11 Monday, 2001
- ^ Frantz, Douglas (12 June 2001). "Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations Break Off After 4 Hours". NYT. Retrieved August 10, 2012.
- "Jewish settlers in West Bank urge revenge for dead baby". Chicago Sun-Times. 12 June 12, 2001. p. 25.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Harow, Ari (June 14, 2001). "My Cousin Yehuda". Aish. Retrieved August 12, 2012.
- "Yehuda Fund". Yehuda Fund. Retrieved August 7, 2012.
