Want to meet the victims of hostile acts? Go to the village of Burin, south of Nablus, because no article can convey the fear, methodicalness, hypocrisy and collaboration of each entity that seeks to make the villagers loathe their lives.

If the settlers from Yitzhar and its outposts take a rest from their sacred harassment of these villagers, then, thank God, there are still the Bracha B outpost and the mini-outpost Givat Ronen to show these goyim just who the chosen people are.

And let’s not deprive the army and the Border Police, who work day and night to carry out their supreme mission of protecting Israeli citizens, even when those citizens are shooting at Palestinians, throwing stones at them, setting trees and cars on fire, keeping Palestinians from harvesting their olive groves despite pre-coordination with the army, rolling burning tires onto fields, or expelling people from their land.

Burin’s eastern neighborhood is a special target of attack, 500 to 800 meters away from a hilltop claimed by Bracha B and Givat Ronen. Daringly, young Palestinian couples are building their homes in the neighborhood, as Israelis come down the hill and try to stop the construction. Heroically, they raise their children, who sometimes see psychologists from Doctors Without Borders to help them cope with their fear and powerlessness.

Here is a partial list of some of the latest attacks, taken from a letter sent by human rights group Yesh Din to Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, the general in charge of the army’s Central Command:

* October 31: Israelis go down the hill from Bracha B to Burin. The Israel Defense Forces arrives at the village’s eastern neighborhood and fires tear gas at village residents.

* November 9: Israelis go down the hill from Bracha B to eastern Burin and throw stones. IDF soldiers are present but don’t intervene. Village residents throw stones back at the Israeli assailants. The army fires tear gas, stun grenades and rubber-coated metal bullets – at the Palestinians, of course.

* November 10: Same as the day before.

* November 13: Same as November 9 and 10.

* November 14: Same thing, but with a few light injuries and three arrests, including that of a 13-year-old boy. Injuries and arrests among the Palestinians, what else?

* November 25: Anonymous assailants throw two firebombs at the Omran family home at night. Since then, the youngest child has been having nightmares and is frightened by noises. Playing outside the house is dangerous, because at any moment “the neighbors” could come down the hill and spread fear.

Let there be no doubt: The settlers are coveting the hill on whose slope the eastern neighborhood of Burin is built. After all, there are dozens of dunams of pastoral landscape and air as pure as in the Alps. The settlers have already evicted the owners of the one house that’s already there, glory be to God. As for a road, they halted that project a decade ago. Now olives are harvested there, but only in the presence of a rescue team from Rabbis for Human Rights.

'Two leftists and two locals'

The IDF and Border Police don’t sit idly by. They do some expulsions of their own. Last Monday, about 10 minutes after this reporter, a photographer and two Burin residents reached the top of the hill, three Border Police officers approached us. One of them, Saher Ghanem, put the stun grenade he had been holding in his hand back in his pocket only when he was about 10 meters from us. “This is a closed military zone,” he announced.

“Show us the order,” I challenged. He didn’t produce it. The other Border Police officer, Niran Yadin, called in the situation.

“There’s two leftists and two locals,” he reported.

Above us, at the edges of Bracha B, soldiers gathered and came down toward us. Sgt. Liran Fuchs acted friendly and extended a hand to one of the Burin residents. He had no order to show us either. Of course, when only the locals are around, who needs an order if you have stun grenades and tear gas?

Now take a look at what the IDF Spokesman’s Office wrote to Haaretz:

* “The Palestinians’ presence in the area under discussion does not constitute a violation of the law, and it is indeed Area B” (which is under Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli and Palestinian security control).

What generosity. We, the Settler Defense Forces, allow Palestinians to step foot (for now) on the land they have been cultivating since before Theodor Herzl was born.

* “Nonetheless, the site is a known locus of conflict between the populations of the area.”

Yes, after all, everything in life is symmetrical, isn’t it? Between those on the hilltop and those in the valley, between shepherds and farmers, between boys from Mars and girls from Venus.

* “During disturbances of the peace, the way we deal with the disorderly is identical and is determined in accordance with a situation assessment on the ground.”

Identical? Is that why when settlers attack Palestinians, the army expels the Palestinians from their land? Is that why the army broke into the Omrans’ home three weeks after assailants firebombed it?

* “Due to a misunderstanding, at the beginning it was indeed said that the area had been designated a closed military zone, but the matter was then clarified and no action was taken to disperse those present in the area. Directives on the matter will be clarified to the forces.”

Sure. Let’s talk the next time the Palestinian residents are forcibly dispersed.

The outposts are illegal, even according to the Israeli laws of plunder. But the IDF and Border Police must protect Israeli criminals as long as they’re settlers in occupied territory. The toddlers of the Bracha B outpost, with large knitted kippot and long sidelocks, who last week were still playing soccer with what was left of the snow, are indeed entitled to any protection there is. But no one is protecting them from the malignant disease of a master race.