Yitzchak Magrafta: Traitor of Hebron

[Mifletzet]

Last week's Haredi Mishpacha magazine contained an interview with Sheikh Farid al Ja'abri, ostensibly a "good" arab. A very wealthy sheikh from Saudi Arabia, he was called in to settle arab in-fighting. Ja'abri says he wants good relations with the Jews. He has his own private militia, and even Hamas and Tanzim fear him.

Here being interviewed by the Mishpacha reporter




Of more concern is one Yitzchak Magrafta, who according to this is a Jewish traitor.


The Middleman

"Yitzchak Magrafta arranged this interview with the sheikh, as well as the
historic meeting between Hebron's Jewish leaders and the Arabs. I have
never fathomed the mystery behind this man. He is a leftist whose main interest is helping the Arab residents of Hebron, but he is the only man whohas won the trust, friendship, and esteem of the heads of the Jewish local council, as well as of the Arab clans.

During the clampdown on Hebron, he distributed food to the Arab residents. Every day, he transports Arab children in need of medical attention to
hospitals in Israel, taking a personal follow-up interest in them. At the same time, he did not hesitate to warn the Arabs of the Jewish anarchists, and was, in effect, responsible for their eviction.

His father owned a carpet factory in Beit Shemesh; most of the workers and
dealers came from Hebron. "From an early age, I was attracted to their world
and I used to go and visit them often. Their lifestyle reminds me of my own
early youth. I think that I became active in the city because there was a vacuum and I was sucked into it. The Arabs needed humanitarian help that no one was providing and I slid into that niche." Magrafta affectionately recalls the late Professor Ehud Shprintzak, a leftist who supported him in his activities during the early years.

With the eruption of the second intifada in 2000, Magrafta began orga-
nizing food shipments for the PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazis together with newspaperman
Yitzhar Be'er, former CEO of the Betzelem civil rights organization, whom
he describes as a close friend. He prefers to call himself a peace activist
rather than a leftist activist. He shuns all political affiliation.

One morning, while he was distributing food to Hebronite refugees,
several Hamas men attacked him, bound him, and flung him into their
car. They took him to a cave, where he spent a frightening day and night. A
cold sweat appears even now as he reminisces about that dreadful event of
seven years ago. Thanks to the intervention of Tanzim activists, headed by
Rasaan Abu Snina, son to one of the biggest families in Hebron, he was re-
leased. One of his kidnappers is the terrorist who murdered the infant Shalhevet Pas, Hy"d.

For years he has been telling the Jewish residents to initiate direct con-
tact with their PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazi neighbors.

"It is important that the Jews in Judea and Samaria maintain an open,
direct line of communication with the Arabs," he says, maintaining that a
good relationship can be built. "The settlers can arrive at agreements with
them. If they don't, there'll be others to do it in their place, and that could be
tragic."

Yitzchak Magrafta concentrates his hostilities against the anarchists whom
he considers the real danger, the true enemy, whose only purpose is to de-
stroy the State of Israel. One need not be a peace activist in Hebron to know
that the anarchists — many of them foreign nationals — constitute one big
headache and source of exasperation, to the Jews and to the authorities, not
only in Judea and Samaria. There isn't a conflagration between Jews and Arabs in which they aren't involved. Uprooting vineyards around Dolev and in other areas, blocking Highway 443, violent protests against the Security Fence, and actions against new building around Kiryat Arba are just a few of dozens of incidents stamped with the print of various anarchist solidarity organizations."



In the above last pargraph, are Jewish rightwingers being included among the "foreign nationals" and "anarchists"?! cf Rabin referring to Baruch Goldstein and those like him, as "foreign weeds"!