Arabs In Tapu'ah: What Happened?

כ"ח לחודש השלישי תשע"ג

Kol Yehudi: [K'far] Tapu'ah: 5 Residents were Arrested Who Tried to Prevent Arab Workers from Entering

Elhanan Gruner, June 2, 2013

The decision to allow the entrance of Arab workers into the town boundaries of [K'far] Tapu'ah this morning led to a confrontation between residents opposed to the move and the Arab workers' employers. Five of the town's residents who tried to prevent the Arabs from entering were arrested. (Translated by Esser Agaroth)

Arab worker in K'far Tapu'ah

Esser Agaroth (2¢): 
As a former resident K'far Tapu'ah, I am embarrassed by the actions of the town council, yet not in the least bit surprised.

Few Jews in and outside of Israel, and few non-Jews are aware that Arabs coming into Jews towns in Yehudah and the Shomron is not at all uncommon. K'far Tapu'ah, however, had been one of the few towns to stand behind its "no Arab" policy.

A similar situation occurred in the even more Mamlakhti (undying State-loyalist) town of Ofrah, to the south of K'far Tapu'ah. The Ofrah town council had decided to prevent an "Israeli" Arab contractor from doing work in the town. When the Ofrah resident, a Jew, who had hired the Arab threatened to sue the town, the council backed down. However, it did insist upon armed security escorts to keep an eye on the Arabs.


What I gather from Gruner's report, from one of those arrest residents, since released, and from another reliable source, the project has been funded with money from the Israeli government, and must follow Israeli governmental policy, which happens to include assurances of [suicidal] "equality." The Arab workers (all of them?) in question apparently have State of Israel identification cards, and thus can be allowed into Jewish towns.

Rather than slowing down the project, by hiring only Jews, and obtaining alternative funding, it was decided to accept the government funding, and thus the government's conditions.

That's what appears to be the reasoning on the surface. However, if the "mayor" is still the same "mayor" when I was living there, I sincerely doubt those are all of the details of the story. My personal experience with this "mayor" caused me to run out of kaf zekhuth (benefit of the doubt) for him long before he was even elected "mayor."

From the side of those who tried to prevent the Arabs from entering, many of the Arab workers have been seen all over Tapu'ah, away from any of the building projects. What are they doing? Talking a stroll? Or mapping out the town. If the BBC can encourage it, then "Israeli" Arabs are certainly capable of carrying it out.

The women in Tapu'ah are reported to be particularly afraid of the Arab presence. And those "settler" women I remember from Tapu'ah are not scared so easily. Ironic that the women most frightened are probably from the Mamlakhti families who want the Arabs there in the first place!

When a mosque was burned down in the neighboring village Yassuf, everyone in Israel was in an uproar, including some rabbis, such as Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger and Chief Rabbi of the British Realm Jonathan Sacks.

If a Jewish "settler" woman or a child (God forbid!) were to be attacked by an Arab, who was invited into the town, would there be such an outrage? I am afraid to say that I doubt it. As the Arab is an "Israeli citizen," the case would no doubt. Yet, to prevent such an act from occurring, by doing the only reasonable thing, keeping the potential attacker from entering in the first place, is "racist."

So, maybe it is "racist," according to the lovely Western, progressive definitions we picked up in galuth, and most of my fellow Jews have failed to discard already.

However, HaZa"L (Our Sages, maybe their memories be for blessings) thought otherwise.

אין זנות כזנות ישמעאל.

There is no promiscuity like the promiscuity of Yishma'el.

That's just the animal sexual aspect. For the violence, just pick up a Tana"kh (Bible), and then a messekhta of Talmud. Better yet, get a CD-Rom with both, and read everything which comes up on a search for Yishma'el.

This stamps upon R' Binyamin Kahane's name.

Funny, how, to this day, K'far Tapu'ah is still known as a "Kahanist" town. To the dismay of the majority of the town council, and perhaps even most of the residents arriving over the past 10 or so years, K'far Tapu'ah is simply unable to rid itself of its Kahanist "stigma."

I guess we all know who is getting the last laugh here.

Let's just hope the town council wakes up, and takes a turn away from its path of self-destruction, and the destruction of K'far Tapu'ah and all of its residents.

Unfortunately, I am not so optimistic.

But, perhaps, "when going gets tough, the tough gets going," as they say. And the real Jewish settlers will be allowed to live Jewishly (ie. fully according to the Torah), and be allowed to defend their land and protect their families Jewishly, just what Rabbi Binyamin Kahane hy"d and his father Rabbi Meir David Kahane hy"d had always dreamed about.

Post Script:
I just heard from the man who was arrested and released later the same day. Both he and one of the men still in jail, I consider good friends. I do not know the details of this one's interrogation. However, I was able to gather that he took the lemons given to him and made lemonade.

He took the opportunity to do qiruv work, bringing Jews closer to Torah, at the police station. He even encouraged one police officer to make a berakhah (blessing) before drinking his glass of water.