To Our Readers

By JAMES R. GAINES

One of journalism's challenges is covering a story while one step removed from it. Reporters very often must rely on other people's accounts of an event, figuring out just how much credence to give each version. The resulting uncertainty may give rise to an article that lacks authority and necessarily leaves gaps and unanswered questions.

Occasionally, however, reporters are caught up in an event, sometimes dangerously. Then no reconstruction or third-person testimony is needed. The truth of the event comes home to them with a painful certainty. Such was what happened last Thursday evening to Jamil Hamad, a reporter for 10 years in TIME's Jerusalem bureau. Fortunately, when the evening was over, no serious harm had come to Hamad or his family. But he had gained harsh new insight into a story he has long covered for us -- this time by becoming part of it.

As reported by Lisa Beyer, TIME's Jerusalem bureau chief, Hamad was having a ) light dinner with his family in their home in Bethlehem in the West Bank. Around 8:30 p.m., they heard shouting outside. Through the window, they saw two men on the street yelling in American-accented English: "Fyou, Arab cowards!" "I'm going to kill you!" "Come out of your house!"

Both men were brandishing pistols; one was throwing rocks at the house. At one point, the Hamads heard three shots. As it later emerged, the men were Israeli settlers whose car had been stoned nearby. They claimed to police that the perpetrator had run into the Hamads' garden.

The settlers continued their tirade for 15 minutes or so, until two Israeli army jeeps arrived carrying eight soldiers. At that point, Hamad went outside. He asked one of the soldiers, "Protect us from this man." The soldier replied, "Get away. Go home." Hamad noticed that one of the settlers was moving toward his house, with a soldier flanking him on either side. Using his knee, the settler smashed in one of the glass panes on Hamad's front door while the two soldiers stood by.

Hamad ran up to them, shouting, "This man is destroying my property! Arrest him!" The settler answered angrily, "If you don't like it, leave this country!" He then punched Hamad in the chest. Neither of the soldiers made a move to restrain the settler. Hamad's wife Raeda approached, and the settler struck her in the chest. Again the soldiers did not react. By then, about 25 neighbors had gathered and were beginning to seethe. The soldiers pointed guns at the crowd to subdue them.

The soldiers allowed the settlers to leave in their white Volvo. When Hamad asked them to take down the license-plate number, one soldier replied, "It's none of your business." Hamad's son Sadir, 26, asked another soldier, "How could you let him go after what he did?" The soldier replied, "This is Israel, not the United States." When Hamad's oldest son Haitham, 31, a reporter for the Associated Press, arrived at the scene, he phoned the office of the army spokesman to report the episode.

Half an hour after the settlers departed, the commanding officer of the area, who introduced himself as Arik, arrived. He took down Hamad's account of what happened and promised that the settlers would be punished. Around 10:30 p.m., the army's liaison to the foreign press, Lieut. Colonel Yehuda Weinraub, learned about Haitham's complaint and called Hamad to tell him that he would relay the family's story to the office of Major General Ilan Biran, the head of Israel's central command, whose jurisdiction includes Bethlehem.

At 11:30 p.m., Commander Arik returned to the Hamad household to say authorities knew who the settlers were and would arrest them. At around 1 a.m., five Israeli police officers turned up at Hamad's house. They took down his testimony and also questioned the eight soldiers. They photographed the damage to Hamad's door and noted what appeared to be a bullet hole on the facade of the house. One of them said to Sadir, smiling, "We'll arrest the settlers, but, you know, these people have a lot of supporters. They will be released after a few hours. This is how it happens always."

The two men, both from Efrat, a settlement 10 miles south of Bethlehem, were arrested a few hours later. Both denied doing any harm to the Hamads or their house. The next morning they were released on bail, and their guns were confiscated. A police spokesman said the investigation would continue.

The army also promises an inquest into the behavior of the soldiers who stood by while one settler ran amok. "We'll check into it thoroughly, and if something like that happened, it's outrageous," Brigadier General Ilan Tal, the army spokesman, told bureau chief Beyer.

The authorities are not always so responsive in such cases. Last March the Israeli human-rights group B'Tselem released a report documenting 62 killings of Palestinians by Israeli civilians in the occupied territories over the previous six years. In only four of the cases were the Israelis demonstrably in mortal danger. The report was released in the aftermath of the massacre of 29 Palestinians in a Hebron mosque by a Jewish settler. In the course of an official inquiry into that affair, the findings of which have not yet been released, serious questions were raised about the permissiveness of Israeli authorities toward settler violence. According to B'Tselem, security forces have demonstrated "protracted impotence" in combatting settler violence, while the judiciary has been "extremely lenient" toward those miscreants who have been brought to court.

Hamad's experience came to light and prompted some official action, mostly because he and his son are journalists. But the real significance of the episode lies in the broader pattern it reflects. Similar things -- and worse -- happen to all too many Palestinians who lack the relative protection Hamad enjoys.