Twelve anarchists – five Israelis and seven foreign nationals – were arrested by security forces Thursday morning on suspicion that they had set fire to a field owned by Jewish settlers.
The fire consumed some 50 dunams (about 12 acres) of land near the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin.
The incident began at around 8 am when a group of 30 anarchists, accompanied by a number of photographers from the Al-Jazeera television network, arrived at the site. The anarchists set the field on fire and planted olive trees in the torched soil.
According to the settlers, the method is commonly used to take over land. "When the olive trees grow the Civil Administration has a difficult time determining who the land belongs to," one of them said.
The grove has been set on fire three times over the past few weeks by anarchists.
The disputed land is located some 100 meters (330 feet) from Bat Ayin. "These lands have been under Jewish ownership since 1934," said Yaki Morag, the head of security at the settlement. "However, we have no claims to these fields and we do not plan on cultivating them or settling on them. So we don’t understand what the frenzy is about or why they repeatedly target us.
"This has been going on for a year and a half now, on an almost weekly basis," he said. "Yesterday and the day before anarchists burned 90-year-old trees on land that belongs to the Jewish National Fund near Kfar Etzion."
In a related story, the "peace activists" denied earlier reports that they were setting fires in state lands in order to blame Jews. Instead, they said they have video showing that they are setting fires to clear land for Arabs to plant.
But they didn't deny that the fields did not belong to Arabs or that they use this as a land-grab.
Now, especially during a drought, what happens when one of those "controlled fires" gets out of control? The same people call the media and blame the Jews!
In that earlier story, Ma'an posts a bizarre video meant to support allegations of Jewish arson - but the video shows a few Jews doing absolutely nothing. If you want to waste 79 seconds of your life, check out Ma'an's evil settlers:
