What follows is a very local story, even a neighborhood story. In any case, it enters the category of issues which are of public interest and therefore it is told here.

Muhammad is a nice guy, a 26 year old bachelor, always smiling and good humored, who works at the neighborhood grocery store in [the Jewish neighborhood] Ramat Danya in Jerusalem. I know him personally. On Monday morning the store owners, Hananya and Avraham Avrahami and their partner, Shabtai Eliyahu, were upset. Their concern for Muhammad’s fate quickly reached the neighborhood homes and myself. They tried in every manner to find out where Muhammad was. For hours they sat at the phone and were directed from one number to the other, from the Jerusalem police to the Ramallah police, from there to detention centers in various places, and from thereto offices, officials, various and sundry departments of the Military Government. The answers they received left them with the same, heavy distress: Muhammad was not in the hands of the [Israeli] authorities. Then where was he? In Qalandia, the father sat, weeping bitterly. He assumed that his son was dead. Rumors abounded in the camp that shots had been fired nearby the previous evening and that one local was killed. The father feared that it was his son.

In Jerusalem, from the small grocery store, Muhammad’s employers did everything in their power to trace him. They were unsuccessful. I also tried. My friend, Danny Rubinstein, the Haaretz expert on the maze of Territories, telephoned and asked and returned to me with an unequivocal announcement: Muhammad is not known to the [Israeli] forces. He was not on the list of those detained anywhere in Judea and Samaria (sic) or in Jerusalem. Indeed, there had been an incident in the Ramallah area and there was an Arab wounded and his name was indeed similar to Muhammad’s, but his ID number was completely different. On the other hand, Muhammad showed no signs of life. Thus the day passed with great concern. There was a suspicion that perhaps Muhammad was no longer among the living.

That evening the shop owners phoned from the grocery store and announced: everything is OK, Muhammad has been found. He had been indeed detained. The following morning I heard Muhammad’s story from his own lips: On Sunday evening Avraham Avrahami had indeed left him at the taxi station in East Jerusalem, and Muhammad had gotten into a taxi and reached Qalandia camp. At the entrance to the camp he witnessed the tail end of an incident: an Israeli Peugeot car, with a yellow [i.e. Israeli] licence plate. was parked and its two occupants were hiding next to the camp entrance. It was evident that minutes earlier the car had been stoned, and that its occupants were looking for the stone throwers.

Muhammad is not a child. He is a man with experience in the current troubles. He avoids being involved in any matter which could put him in trouble either with the Israeli authorities, or with the different [Palestinian] masked shock groups. Although he noticed the tension at the camp entrance, due to the stoning incident, he continued on his way home. In his pocket he had an identity card and a work permit. Suddenly, the two Israelis who were waiting in ambush for the stone throwers caught him. One of them put a gun to his head and ordered him to get into the car. Muhammad tried to resist. He explained that he had just returned from work at the Ramat Danya grocery store, that they could phone the Avrahami brothers and get a reference about him, that he had noticed the two Israelis hiding and understood that their car had been stoned, but nevertheless he had gone close to them because he was innocent, and they knew that that was the situation because they had seen him get out of the taxi. Muhammad spoke as if to the trees and the stones: they forcefully pushed hm Into the car, and when he resisted, they kicked him. Muhammad describes the pair: they both wore b!g yarmulkas, one of them was bearded, they wore civilian clothing. They blindfolded him With a kerchief and pushed his head down. One of them drove while the other sat next to the hostage in the back seat and pushed his head towards the car floor each time Muhammad tried to raise his head. According to Muhammad’s estimate, the drive lasted about one hour. He was bound and led to a certain place and placed on a sandy surface. He is unable to identify the place because his face was covered. Around him he heard noises. Thus he sat for hours. The night was chilly, no one came over to him, no one asked any questions, no one offered him any food or drink.

At about 3:00 a.m. he was taken to a small tent. The rag was removed from his eyes and he was told to sleep. on the floor. No one was in the tent besides himself. It seemed to him that someone had been placed at the entrance to the tent to guard him. At 7:00 a.m. another Jewish civilian came into the tent, ordered him to get up, blindfolded him again and took him back to the sandy surface where he had been the night before. For an entire day he remained there. In the evening someone came over to him and asked: Why are you here? Muhammad replied: I want to know that too. He told the questioner how he had been brought there and explained that he had done nothing wrong and that information about him could be obtained from his employers at the grocery store in Ramat Danya. The man asked: Are you sure you did not throw stones? Muhammad repeated his version. The man took Muhammad’s identity card and work permit and said: "I will check your story". Some time later the man returned, gave Muhammad his documents, and said: "Get up and do not make any trouble. I do not want to see you here". He put Muhammad in a car, drove for several minutes. and stopped. He untied Muhammad’s eyes and ordered him: "Scram quickly. I do not want to see you anymore". Muhammad scramed. He ran away. asking himself if the man would not shoot him in his back. Very quickly he reached the Ramallah-Nablus road. Muhammad estimates that the place where his kidnappers placed him is near Nablus, but he is unable to identify it. He would also find it difficult to identify the man who released him because he was shaking with fear, did not notice details, and saw him for only a few seconds, from the time the blindfold was removed from his eyes and until the man disappeared in his car. He estimates that he was left on the sandy surface the whole of Monday because he was simply forgotten and the man who released him saw him by accident. But that is the supposition of a frightened hostage. During all the hours he sat there in fear, hungry and thirsty, he thought about his worried family and about Avraham, Hananiya and Shabtai. He knew that there were rumors in Qalandia about Jewish revenge groups, who kidnap Arab youths, take them to the mountains and torture them. He thought that that was what would happen to him and cursed his bad luck. Had he been arrested by the police or the army he would have felt better.

On the main road an elderly Arab driver travelling with his family stopped for him. Muhammad was embarrased to ask where exactly they were, because it would not be proper to demonstrate such ignorance on such a matter. On the other hand, he did not want to talk abbut the circumstnaces which had brought him to the road. At 19:15 he arrived at his home. The family received him as if he had fallen out of the sky.

I phoned to check out again with the proper [Israeli] authorities if Muhammad had been arrested or wanted by any branch of our forces. From the other end of the line I was assured that his name was on no such list. Muhammad, therefore, was kidnapped by private persons – according to his description religious settlers wearing yarmulkas – additional evidence of the wild west laws prevailing in the West Bank, which must be raised even in the week the young settler Yuval was stabbed on the way from Kiriyat Arba [near Hebron]. Muhammad is not the real name of the person described here: he is so afraid of the revenge of his kidnappers that he asked me to find another name for him in order to publicize his story, Therefore, any similarity between him and other Palestinian youths, subjected to torture by hot headed settlers, is completely coincidental.

Note: Hundreds if not thousands of such kidnappings happen every month. It can be assumed that the Israeli authorities either explicitely or tacitly support such kidnappings and other forms of settlers’ illegal activities.