Some reminders about TIPH

People are upset that Israel will not renew the mandate for the Temporary Independent Presence in Hebron, which did everything it could to delegitimize Jewish rights to the city.

It is worth remembering some things that have happened over its history.

TIPH observers were attacked not by Jews, but by Palestinian Arabs:

On 26 March 2002 two observers, Catherine Berruex and Turgut Cengiz Toytunç were killed, and another observer wounded after their car was shot on a road near Halhul. The wounded observer said the shooter was dressed in a Palestinian police uniform and that he kept shooting after the observers told him they were from TIPH. The TIPH car was marked with large orange TIPH stickers, a marking well known to the area's residents. An Israeli military court found a Palestinian man guilty of the murders, in September, 2003. Israeli authorities said that three people were involved in the killing.

 In February 2006, TIPH staffers fled and evacuated their offices following an attack by hundreds of Palestinians high school children who threw rocks and broke car windows. The attackers shouted their opposition to the publication of Muhammad cartoons in Denmark and Norway.

These were the people they were protecting!

As far as their impartiality goes....

 In July 2017, a TIPH employee punctured the tires of a car owned by a Jewish family. The incident, which was caught on film, shows a TIPH marked vehicle arriving at the scene and man wearing a TIPH vest crouching near the tire as two other men from the vehicle stand watch.According to the Israeli foreign ministry, TIPH head Einar Johnsen expressed his regrets for the incident and said that "TIPH monitors that were involved in inappropriate activity were immediately sent back to the countries".

In July 2018, the legal counsel of the TIPH was filmed slapping a 10-year-old Jewish boy across the face. After the footage was released, the TIPH member was ordered to leave Israel. The Swiss ambassador to Israel apologized for the actions of the observer.

Apologies notwithstanding, these incidents show that TIPH was made up of people who were anything but impartial.  And the only reason these incidents were discovered was because they were filmed - imagine how many similar incidents happened when the cameras weren't rolling.

TIPH did nothing positive, and it is good that they are being forced to leave.

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