Sports Illustrated has its bikini issues featuring the hottest bods of 2011. We have our own feature: the Settlers of Sheikh Jarrah. This may become a regular feature if my friends in Solidarity can produce figures as colorful as today’s subject, Yaakov Fauci aka Yaakov Ish Tam and the Kalashnikover Rebbe.
In a scene reminiscent of other times of historic Jewish tragedy in the last century, at last Friday’s weekly Sheikh Jarrah protest against Palestinian home theft, one of the most radical of the settlers, the Israeli-American Fauci, let loose a vicious attack dog (rather humorously named, if you’re a settler, Shiksa) against the Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators at the scene (be sure to check out the Jerusalem Post video featuring Fauci training the dog to attack the Muslim enemy). They were protesting Fauci’s occupation (cf. theft) of the Al-Kurd home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood.
Fauci’s Yaakov Ish Tam moniker is a diminutive meaning “simple man.” But tam can also mean a simpleton, which seems more apt.
Later during the protest, media photographers snapped shots of a wounded Fauci and there was a claim that the demonstrators did this to him. One who was there saw no rock throwing, but said there was a rumor that a Palestinian youth threw a rock at him. Of course the bloodied Fauci will be used for settler propaganda for months, if not years. But no one will remember the picture I feature here of Fauci reminding us of the way our ancestors were treated in 1930s Germany.
Fauci has an interesting extremist “rap sheet.” He’s lived in the far-right settlement of Tapuach, once the home as well to Israeli mass murder, Eden Natan Zada. Fauci is a member of the farthest right-wing settler extremist group, Revava, which also boasted Zada as a member. The Sheikh Jarrah thief was arrested in 2005 for posting flyers praising Eden Zada’s killing spree. He also was delighted at the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a fellow Jewish terrorist (though Fauci’s more of a wannabe). The only thing Fauci regrets is that he can only sic a dog on the demonstrators. No doubt he’d prefer a Kalashnikov if he could get away with it.
Just an idle question, but when did Fauci convert? Do you know? How many of these settlers are converts from other religions, or from no religion, or from less-extreme and violent forms of the same faith? This is something I’ve wondered for some time now.
Fauci’s Facebook profile, which was previously deleted, is back:
link to facebook.com
Here is another picture of the same man, dog, and circumstances with a larger viewing area.
link to maannews.net
This is an interesting post. Thanks, Richard!
my cousin was a paraplegic for many years because of one rock as he was driving home. I daresay I think all rock-throwing protesters should have dogs unleashed on them.
I think thieves who steal people’s homes, rip clothes off women, kill flocks of goats & kill farmers should have dogs sicced on them too.
Maybe these people should stop stealing land, farm implements, and water, destroying crops, and harassing the people who live there. Maybe the Powers That Be should toss the squatters and thieves out. There would be then no need to throw a rock, yes?
Aviva, I’m sorry to hear about your cousin, assuming he wasn’t a settler and if his home wasn’t in Palestine.
I have a question:
Can one legally sue in a US court an Israeli-American (or American-Israeli) on terrorism charges for documented terrorist acts committed against another American in a foreign land?
Richard says: “The picture clearly showed the dog attacking protesters.”
Response: Uh, no it doesn’t. It shows a dog on a leash, trying to go forward, but on a leash. And the dog’s mouth is closed. It is not snarling or biting anyone.
Richard, why do you lie to yourself in order to twist things into anti-Israel stories? What is wrong with you?
If you can’t see that dog lunging & Fauci struggling mightily to restrain him then you are blind as a bat. Do you think the dofg was lunging at a piece of steak?? I’ll be checking w the Sheikh Jarrah folks to find out how many dog bites & attacks there’ve been on protesters too.
If you think the K-9 attack dog brigade maintained by David HaIvri & other settlers is just for show & that it doesn’t regularly attack & injure victims then you’re morally obtuse & sensorily challenged.
Isn’t “struggling mightily to restrain” the opposite of “letting loose” ?
The point is effectively made by the image and the video (as well as by other reports of protesters being injured by such dog attacks).
Why not just use the original caption and let the image speak for itself?
Holding an aimed gun on somebody and allowing a large leashed dog to lunge can be argued as very similar acts. They are deliberate threats of severe injury, and perhaps death.
That said, I think I understand your point. We do not know if he allowed the dog to freely attack in this particular case.
Do you know anything about dogs? Have you ever been bitten by one? Have you ever watched dogs fighting or attacking human beings? I’ve done most of those things. And believe me, this isn’t petty semantics we’re talking about. As Maria says, everything about this dog says he’s ready to turn whoever’s in front of him into hamburger meat. If you were the one in front of that dog you’d be screaming bloody murder at Fauci to call his dog off. If you don’t want to call it letting the dog loose then you don’t send the dog into this situation to begin with.
I’m tired of the carping about this. Move on everyone.
And since this is a Malinois (Belgian Shepherd), the likelihood of the dog continuing to attack until called off is high. Malinois are well-known for their strength, extreme prey drive, and obedience. The US Navy Seals exclusively use Malinois, as does the US Secret Service.
In other words, this dog is a weapon. Not some family pet.
The dog is lunging. Its forepaws are off the ground. The leash is wrapped around the handler’s fist, and being held taut with the other hand. The dog is pretty clearly not seeing this as a game: its tail is down, its ears are akimbo, and it is showing the body language of a dog about to attack.
This is clear menacing if it is being done at a person.
And what is this American jerk doing living in somebody else’s house? He’d be arrested for that here.
In my version the picture shows only one dog and it is on a leash, whereas the headline says that settlers (plural) let attack dogs (plural) loose against protesters.
I know that you value accuracy and journalistic integrity, which is why I mention the apparent discrepancy between the headline, the picture, the text and your comment above.
Please also kindly provide a source for your fact that dogs used by the settlers “routinely bite victims”. This will be useful with anti-settler media activities.
If you do your own research, even just via Google, you will find numerous incidents of Palestinians receiving injuries due to attacks by dogs around the settlements.
If an attack dog on a leash assaults a protester and injures him as often happens with no punishment given, then it’s perfectly reasonable to say the dog has been “let loose” or sicced on the protesters. Interesting how when it’s to yr advantage you become a literalist. “Let loose” has a literal & figurative meaning & you know precisely what I meant & that it was an appropriate use of the term. A warning, I tire very quickly of such sophistry. Don’t try my patience.
To stand defenseless as one of these vicious dogs is let loose to attack seems to me to be one of the most terrifying things imaginable. To stand defenseless as half a dozen of these vicious attack dogs strain at their leashes a few meters away is equally terrifying, even if the resulting injuries are psychological rather than physical. I continue to shake with fear whenever I recall being in that frightening situation when I imagined I was to be set upon by ferocious animals nearly twice my size, barring their teeth at me as they lunged closer and closer to my face. The fear is the same, and it is inexcusable for Israeli soldiers and settlers (or U.S. soldiers) to use attack dogs to terrorize unarmed civilians.
Is your headline (Settlers Let Attack Dogs Loose Against Protesters) accurate? There is nothing about it in your article. How many settlers let attack dogs loose? How many dogs were involved? How many innocent people were harmed?
The picture clearly showed the dog attacking protesters. Are you blind or just don’t want to believe the evidence before your eyes? There is additionally a specific unit of K-9 attack dogs trained by settlers for just this service. Such dogs are used by settlers & the IDF & routinely bite victims.
The picture does not actually show that.
In fact, it appears from the picture that the man is restraining the dog. Notice he is holding tightly onto the dog’s leash.
The original caption that accompanied the image, which you appear to have replaced with your own caption, begins with “A Jewish settler holds a dog on a leash in the face of protestors…”
That being said, the video is pretty alarming.
So the caption is wrong, the headline is wrong, Richard’s comment to me (the “are you blind?” comment above) was wrong and information in the text is apparently wrong, too. Got it.