The former president of Rabbis for Human Rights was violently assaulted by far-right Jewish settlers yesterday.

Video footage of the brutal attack near the Maale Ahuvia illegal settlement outpost, shows prominent Rabbi Arik Ascherman being beaten with a wooden club while surrounded by settlers.

ליבוביץ צדק.
רפואה שלמה לצדיק @RavArik שהוכה שוב היום ע"י טרוריסטים מהגבעות. pic.twitter.com/Mk8hBu24Xv

— Avner Gvaryahu (@AGvaryahu) April 7, 2021

According to the Jerusalem Post, Ascherman arrived in the area to ask Jewish shepherds to divert their flock from plowed fields nearby belonging to local Palestinians. He used his Twitter account to share a video depicting the minutes preceding the attack; a heated conversation between himself and several settlers; and one of them calling him a “murderer” while threatening him.

Following the assault, Ascherman said that Israeli occupation forces stood by and watched as he was beaten with a club.

“The brutal attack on me happened because Israeli security forces allowed Ma’aleh Ahuvia to rebuild after evacuating it yesterday,” he explained, “and didn’t stop the flocks from entering Dir Jarir lands to eat what is growing there.”

והנה הרקע לתקיפה כאשר תפשנו שאת עדר מעלה אהוביה בעיצומה של גניבה של התבואה החקלאית של דיר ג'ריר, ודיווחנו למשטרה. This is the background to the brutal blows I received when we caught the flock of Ma'aleh Ahuvia in the act entering Dir Jarir fields.https://t.co/VrM9W5jJo1

— Rabbi Arik Ascherman (@RavArik) April 7, 2021

Last month, Ascherman was taken to a hospital emergency room following an attack by Jewish settlers, which saw him having stitches in his ear as his arm was checked to see if it was broken. Writing about the incident in the Times of Israel, the rabbi described what he called “the resurgence of Kahanism” and said that “this was the latest and most serious of many attacks in the last few weeks. I’ve lost count, but have submitted close to ten police complaints about attacks.”

Sharing a photo of the tear on his ear, Ascherman explained that, “I have not been the only victim, and of course the real victims are the Palestinians. The story is the same one I have told several times.”

The settlers, he said, are “driven by an insatiable drive to dispossess Palestinian.” He explained that they go on an almost daily basis to steal what others have planted in order to cause sufficient fear and financial loss to get the Palestinian Bedouin to give up, and not come back to their summer homes where their animals graze on what they have planted.

(MEMO, PC, Social Media)