Original subtitles

[ethereal music]

[gentle music]

[wind blowing]

[Amir] We're facing the two mountains.

Har Gerizim, the mountain of the blessing,

and Har Ebal, the mountain of the curse.

Well, the blessing and the curse, to live here.

This place is beautiful in the middle of nature.

And that's part of the blessing.

The curse is, why can't I live here in peace?

[light tense music]

This is our settlement in the West Bank.

Why do we have fences?

Fences, five miles around Itamar, more or less.

And, uh, uh, you can see the village of, uh, Awarta.

That's the Palestinian village that is close to us.

[bird chirping]

And the birds that fly around here and... [chuckles]

...they fly over Itamar,

and a minute later, they're over Awarta.

They don't have any fences, but we do.

The fences are what we call a smart fence.

It tells us if people touch it, if, uh, people climb over,

if people cut it apart or stuff like that.

[music continues]

That's one of the cameras that guard Itamar.

A terrorist entered a private home in the settlement of Itamar

and brutally murdered five people.

[thunder rumbling]

[Moshe] The terrorist came to the fence from Awarta.

[panting]

[wind howling]

[crickets chirping]

[suspenseful music]

And they set off the alarm of our fence.

[sirens wailing]

So we sent a jeep, a jeep was sent in that area.

A jeep went down, they didn't see,

and the terrorists were able to get over the fence

and make their way up towards the Fogel house.

[men singing in Hebrew]

What was going down on the Fogel home, they was--

it was something called an Oneg Shabbat.

So you're getting together and singing songs,

that spiritual kind of meeting.

[child giggling]

And then, after that's over, people obviously go home

after having a nice party.

At that moment, the terrorists made their move, they looked through the window,

they see children on the floor.

[ominous music]

They go inside and lock the door from the inside.

[door opens]

The killers entered the room of 11-year-old Yoav...

...and slashed his throat.

[wind howling]

[dog barking]

One of the killers strangles four-year-old Elad.

[melancholic music]

The other terrorist...

...stabbed him twice in the chest.

And then, they went into the parents room.

There was a struggle in the parents room.

[Moshe] Udi, stabbed in the neck.

Ruti is knifed repeatedly.

But when the killers see she's still alive, they shoot her...

[gunshots]

...with a stolen gun.

[Amir] They wanted to run outside.

One of the security cars came right on this road here.

[engine rumbling]

They saw the car coming, so they slammed the door...

-[door bangs] -...and the small baby

had dust from the slamming of the door and cried.

And they stabbed her to death.

Then they came here to the, to the garden,

jumped over this small fence here.

They ran right over there, another half a mile...

...to their houses in Awarta. They took their clothes off.

They burnt them, 'cause they didn't want anybody

to find blood on their clothes.

[wind howling]

[sighs] You know, there is no words that could,

could, um, explain how human beings

could behave so brutally, so...

[music continues]

...barbarians. There's no word. No words to describe that.

[crickets chirping]

[Amir] People ask me, why do we live here...

...with our families, our kids?

Why would we stay after something like this?

It's a tough question.

It's complicated.

[upbeat music]

[bird chirping]

-[engines rumbling] -[horn honking]

[Amir] Uh, we had a joke that on the big-- uh, like, in...

...2000 year and stuff like that,

when there were a lot of bombings in Tel Aviv,

Jerusalem and so on,

so they ask you, "Wow, you're from Itamar.

Isn't it d-- dangerous?" And stuff like that.

So, our joke was that

you have to tell them that, "Yeah, sure it's dangerous.

We have to go throu-- through Tel Aviv or through, uh, Jerusalem

to ge-- to get back home.

It's much, much more tense," and stuff like that.

[gentle music]

Well, my name is, uh, Amir Yosman.

Uh, I'm 32 years old now,

and I'm a paramedic...

...and I'm a settler.

[horn honking]

I live in Itamar...

...for about five years.

It's different. Like, you know, they don't have a mall and you don't have a bank

and all kind of services that you need, uh, daily or weekly,

and it's a bit tougher, but we live in the place

that is very important to live,

like, in a place that we have to settle in,

we have to grab the-- no, not to grab, but we have to, like,

be, be in the land.

To get to Itamar, we'll pass Jerusalem,

separation barrier wall.

It's a dangerous drive.

[narrator] The settlement of Itamar is deep in the northern West Bank,

a region the Jews call Samaria, or in Hebrew, Shomron.

[light tense music]

An hour's journey from Jerusalem...

...through the separation barrier.

Itamar is guarded by several military checkpoints...

...like the Tapuach Junction.

It's surrounded by several Arab villages,

including Huwara, Awarta,

and Nablus.

But to understand the story of Itamar,

you must first understand the significance of the West Bank.

The West Bank is one of the most fought over pieces of land on Earth.

Before 1967, it was ruled by the Kingdom of Jordan,

and Jews were forbidden to enter.

But Jews have always had a special connection to the land.

During the Six-Day War of 1967,

Israel defeated three Arab nations,

capturing the West Bank.

Soon, Zionist Jews began settling there,

believing they were returning to their biblical roots.

But tensions between Palestinian Arabs and Jews turned into clashes,

with attacks and reprisals on both sides,

and many people murdered, including the Fogel family.

[engines rumbling]

[Amir] Yeah, when you go to Itamar, you have to have a good view.

[soft squeaking]

[birds chirping]

[man] Is that a special pass for the separation barrier?

No, this is just an air freshener.

[light tense music]

So, our journey begins.

Okay, so we're going now

past the... separation wall...

...barrier.

That's it.

And we're heading, heading north towards Itamar,

and the others, uh, parts of the Samaria.

After the Oslo peace agreement,

the whole area of Judea and Samaria

was divided to three zones.

The A zone, the B zone, and the C zone.

A stands for, um, Palestinian Authority,

where they have their security and their, uh, police, uh, authority.

Uh, the B zone is where the Palestinians live,

but the, uh, IDF is the military ruler.

And the C zone, that is the main roads

and the Israeli villages, like settlements.

[music continues]

And our joke says that A stands for "Arabs," as A.

C stands for Selanu,

like, shelanuin Hebrew, that's our zone.

And B is balagan,is like, we don't know... [laughs] what happens there.

It's, uh, it's also IDF,

also Palestinian guys t-- live there, so it's, like,

all messed up. And, uh,

-most of the zones are... more or less B, the B zone. -[man chuckles]

[hip-hop music]

[engines rumbling]

[wind blowing]

[Moshe] I was born in the USA, in Brooklyn.

I saw myself at a very young age living in Israel one day.

That dream came true.

[door creaking]

[shofar blowing]

[speaks Hebrew]

Welcome.

They say that Jews have horns, but we use our mouths.

[laughing]

[gentle music]

Hi, um, my name is Moshe Goldsmith, um,

I've been living on Itamar for the last 34 years.

Um, I'm a rabbi, an educator.

I've also served for nine years as the, uh, mayor of this community,

the small town mayor of Itamar.

And, uh, a simple person trying to build the land,

I would sum it up in that way.

-Leah, come here a sec-- [laughs] -[Leah] Oh, my God!

I can't believe this pressure!

My husband is Moshe, and we're married 33 years

and we're living here as many as that.

We came to Israel right after the wedding.

[Moshe] Yeah, Leah made it happen. She's a doer.

Well, it all started when I was born,

um, to Holocaust survivors.

Had a typical American childhood.

You know, I rode my bike, went out with my friends.

But something from the future was calling to me.

I just didn't know what it was.

[music continues]

[Moshe] So there was a girl in class named Leah.

And, um, her and her best friend Susie,

they would throw paper airplanes at me and harass me and whatever it was.

But me and Leah became-- we-- very good friends, we were little kids,

we became very good friends, 12 years old.

And after I graduated high school, I didn't see her for seven years.

Which is when a friend of mine, who is also a friend of Moshe's,

um, said, "Oh, remember, Moshe?"

Leah comes over, she knocks, goes like this...

...knocks on my desk. And I went... [gasping and laughing] "Oh!

What's going on over here?" I look up and she goes,

"Hi, do you remember me, Moshe?" [laughing]

[Leah] And that's when it started.

That's when we started to make history.

[Moshe] We were plowing, um, north and south.

We went to Gush Katif, the southern part of Israel,

the Gaza, uh, region.

I'm not a sand person.

So we came upon this new settlement that was just beginning,

a new pioneering community called Itamar.

So I said, "Leah, we have to live here."

[music continues]

[birds cawing and chirping]

[Leah] We lived in the fast lane for those days.

And then we came to a very slow,

slow, empty place.

So we grew from about ten young families

to close to 300 families now.

[Moshe] The people that formed the community of Itamar

was a very small nucleus in the beginning of idealists,

people that believe we are fulfilling the 2000-year-old dream

of Israel to return to Zion.

And full of so many barriers and so many obstacles.

[tense music]

You feel a vibe in the air here,

like a positive and a negative charge.

It's a force.

[reporter 1] There has been international condemnation

of plans to expand settlements

on land the Palestinians want for a state.

[reporter 2] In a rare show of unity, the UN Security Council

passed judgment on Israeli settlements...

[speaking Spanish]

-[woman] 14 votes in favor. -[crowd clapping]

...voting that they'd become a serious threat

to a viable peace deal with the Palestinians.

This is th-- the most ridiculous thing in the world,

to think that we would be an obstacle to peace.

The settlements.

Um, the opposite.

True peace... will come through understanding,

mutual understanding of who we are.

The Jews have become the villains since the beginning of time.

In Egypt, we were persecuted by the Egyptians.

We all know, um, the plan of Hitler.

[melancholic music]

Throughout the ages, we've been constantly persecuted

and hated for being Jews.

I can understand, and I can accept

why people would say that building new settlements

is an obstacle to peace.

And I would-- I even accept criticism about certain elements

and the way the settlements are run.

But there's always been an obsession with the Jewish people,

and I'm not afraid to say that it does have

an underlying anti-Semitism that we will never be able to overcome.

And you're aware of it.

You feel it. Because the war

is not just with a knife or a gun.

It's a war of the mind.

It's very hard to remove this emotional part...

...that is survival.

Like, where they feel like they're always in a state of survival,

it's always an existential threat.

[hip-hop music]

[horn honking]

[engines rumbling]

I'm not texting, I'm looking at the, the route.

The Waze, you have a way to configure in your settings of the app

that you don't wanna go through dangerous areas.

So, uh, thank you, Waze.

We know that we live in a dangerous area,

but this is where we live.

[light tense music]

We're now in Huwara.

This is the beginning of Huwara.

Well, right in this place,

right after this small USAID roundabout,

uh...

...a friend of mine from Itamar got stuck within a protest,

a Palestinian protest.

He was here driving back from a shopping.

[indistinct shouting]

[car alarm wailing]

They started throwing rocks on him, but then, it got much worse,

like, throwing rocks on the car

and the glasses started to break and stuff like that.

-So he had to shoot his way out. -[gunshots]

But when he put his head down, he didn't see anything.

He actually killed one Palestinian

and another one was injured.

[tense music]

I'm not scared driving through Huwara, because I'm regular to it.

I'm a bit afraid of what would happen

if my wife would go through something like that.

If my wife and kids would do something like that.

[gunshots]

-[man 1 shouting] Hey! Everybody, down! Down! -[siren wailing]

-[indistinct shouting] -[gunshots]

[Eitan] Correct me if I'm wrong, I think one of the soldiers

came and shield you with his body.

I'm here to make you safe.

And this is why I'm gonna protect you,

even if it's gonna cost me with my life.

Please pay attention, guys. Please pay attention--

-[man] Hey, I'm gonna kill you! -[Eitan] Move back! Move back!

[indistinct shouting]

-[Eitan] Get down, get down! Everybody down! -[man 2 indistinctly shouting]

[indistinct chatter]

[man speaking Hebrew]

[woman chuckling]

Back to the yeshiva.

[deeply exhales]

Shoulder to shoulder, please.

This is exactly how it's happening.

But tell me, please,

which photo are gonna get to the media?

The last one, when I'm sitting with the loaded gun

above a teenager with a soccer team T-shirt on him,

or the first one, that teenager came in, stabbed many people,

the second before--

-The last one. And how I'm gonna get posted... -Yeah.

...around-- around the world? As a pissed animal

and a brutal soldier hurting teenagers and kids.

My name is Achishena Goldsmith.

I'm the daughter of Leah and Moshe Goldsmith.

I was born and raised in Itamar...

-[indistinct chatter] -...and we're going to learn how to shoot

at the shooting range.

What's your motivation in shooting?

[Achishena] My motivation is, uh, learning how to protect myself,

-to protect my relatives. -[Sharon] Very good. Okay.

And, uh, maybe even saving a life one day, you know.

Because sometimes,

terror attacks can be prevented

-if we only had a gun in the right time, you know. -[gunshots]

Now, when I shout "Body,"

-you shout "Body" with me. Okay? -Okay.

Hold the weapon parallel to the, to the target.

Body!

And back.

Look, when I shout,

-you shout too. Okay? -Okay.

-Wake up. We're now... -Okay. I'm waking up.

-...not in the classroom. -[laughs]

-We are in the shooting range. Ready? -Okay. Yeah.

-Body! -Body!

Very good. Run on the spot.

-Body! -Body!

Very good. Okay.

Now, w-- we're adding one more element,

which is the wooden weapon. Okay?

-Okay. -Same thing.

I get into the "Body" position. This is the position.

-Okay. -Okay?

Okay, no problem.

-Ready? -Yeah. Ready.

-Body! -Body!

Very good.

-Again. L shape. -Okay.

-Body! -Body!

-[gunshots] -[Shanon] Perfect.

[speaking Hebrew]

[Achishena] Guns are dangerous. And you have to learn

how to shoot and how to listen to instructions.

-So, my father has a gun. Also, my mom has a gun. -[gunshots]

And when my, uh, sisters got married,

so my parents bought the-- their husbands guns.

"If you wanna marry our daughter, you hav-- you must carry a gun."

[laughs]

[praying in Hebrew]

[shofar blowing]

We live in an area where there are dangers, yes.

It m-- could be dangerous.

Of course, the Fogel tragedy massacre.

So you wanna call that being in a dangerous place?

Yes, but we have to be ready to defend ourselves.

[light tense music]

[wind blowing]

This land, after being without Jews for 2000 years,

and returning now in 1967, after the Six-Day War,

God blessed us with being able to come--

be-- again, return to this land.

[Amir] It's told in the Bible that this land is Israel.

In the Quran, it's also said.

We feel we have a privilege and we have to take advantage of the gift that God gave us.

So we feel it's our biblical right to come back.

That you have a home that God gave you.

He defined a location for the people of Israel,

and Zionism is really a realization of that dream.

[gentle music]

Right now, we're standing on one of my favorite places on Itamar.

The viewpoint of the three seas.

The Dead Sea to the southeast.

The Mediterranean Sea to the west,

we see the sun setting in that direction.

And to the north, the Sea of the Galilee.

So I'm standing on my favorite rock over here,

and I call it the Rock of Abraham.

I always say, this is where the nation of Israel began.

And a lot of people look at the Bible, unfortunately look at it

as some kind of mythology, they don't take it seriously.

But we take the Bible very, very seriously.

This is our life. This is our heritage.

And it all began with a person named Abraham.

Abraham was born in Mesopotamia, in northern Syria,

and one day God tells him,

"Abraham, it's time to leave w-- the place you were born.

It's time to leave your father's house.

And I want you to go to the land I will show you."

And Abraham didn't wait for questions.

He packed his bags, he took his wife, Sarah,

the family together, and they began their exodus

from Mesopotamia to come to the land of Israel.

Abraham comes over here and he walks right below us

in this valley with the family.

And he makes his way to a city right behind us

between these two mountains.

The modern city of Nablus.

It's-- the biblical name is Shechem,

shechemmeaning shoulders, shekem.

As a matter of fact, it looks like shoulders.

I always say, looking at those two mountains,

they look like a football player.

And you need to have football players shoulders

when you're sh-- dealing with the challenges

in the land of Israel. But anyway,

Abraham comes over here

and he enters the city

and he prays and he continues his way to the south.

And this is where it all began. Every time I tell the story,

I feel something else in my heart, I feel--

literally, I'm connecting to my past

and I'm standing in the present and looking forward to the future.

-Look at that. Look at that sunset. It's amazing. -[man] Wow.

[man chanting prayer in Arabic]

I gotta get a picture of that.

[wind blowing]

[camera shutter clicking]

[gentle music]

[crickets chirping]

[bird chirping]

[soft splashing]

[music continues]

[birds chirping]

[indistinct chatter]

[wind blowing]

[Leah] If you read the Bible,

it says the land again will be populated

with the indigenous ancient people

of Israel returning to the land.

And the land will turn from a barren w-- wasteland

to a productive, beautiful land. So how does that happen?

That happens with people going to live there

and by the sweat of their brow.

So if you ask me, "What was it like to come back here?"

It was literally like coming to the Garden of Eden

before the garden was planted.

We had to plant it.

[gentle music]

So when we came from Brooklyn and all of that to Itamar...

[ethereal chiming]

...it just felt fine.

That's what it means to be a settler.

Abraham was a settler. Isaac and Jacob.

Joshua, the nation of Israel, were all settlers.

I think that there is a gap also between

different parts of Israel and the settlements and the way they're perceived as well.

I think the Israeli media has also been responsible

for the image these settlers are given

being aggressive and being inhumane.

My name is Taylor Amrani, and my aim is to represent

a voice that I feel is missing

in the discourse on Israel.

Um, I do that by using modern tools,

through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,

and I think that a lot of the times,

the settlers get this label of less than human beings

when things happen to them because they made a decision

to live there, so they have responsibility for what happens to them.

Like the Fogel family.

[light tense music]

[Amir] People of Tel Aviv don't really wanna know

the story of Itamar.

"Oh, that place, the, the shooting place,

that murder place, that terror pla--

we don't wanna hear about it anymore.

That's bothering us. So let's put it behind a fence."

You go to the Palestinian area

and-- or the West Bank,

you'll see the Jewish settlements

are all beautifully built up,

but you'll also come a-- across a lot of barren land.

It doesn't matter how poor you are,

your land is your land, it's, like, where you're rooted.

And as they look at it, take their land away from them

is to deprive them of their roots.

[light tense music]

[engine rumbling]

[Amir] Welcome to Itamar.

We'll see now the synagogue.

The synagogue is named after the people of Itamar

that were killed in different, uh, terror attacks.

Now we're going through the new basketball, uh, playground,

uh, basketball court, also named after...

...the different people of Itamar that were killed.

[dogs barking]

We have a joke that if we wanna build a new playground,

a new school, whatever you wanna build,

um, we have to have volunteers to get killed.

When you live in a tense place like this,

you have to have a sense of humor

about the whole thing that is happening here.

This house is the Fogel family's house.

[melancholic music]

[wind blowing]

[children indistinctly chattering]

[woman speaking Hebrew]

[Amir] The plans for the new yeshiva...

...were written five years earlier.

But right after the Fogel murder,

we said, "we're now doing this.

We're doing it in one year.

We're gonna build it as a memory...

-[soft splashing] -... for the Fogel family,

and it's called Mishkan Ehud, after Rabbi Udi Fogel."

And that's what happened. We built it in one year, the, the huge yeshiva.

[light tense music]

[Tomer] 70 years ago,

the Germans put, uh, the Jewish with fence.

We don't want to back to the, to the fence, okay?

We had a community meeting about putting a fence

around this area, around the lower, more populated area.

I was against the fence.

I think it shows cowardice to put a fence.

And I was outvoted.

And it proved later,

when our fences were cut

and they came in to kill my friends,

that the fence really was not enough.

[light tense music]

[wind blowing]

[clattering]

-[dogs barking] -[speaking Hebrew]

[sheep bleating]

[ululating]

[whistles]

[dog barking]

[indistinct chatter]

[ominous music]

-[gunshots] -[man indistinctly speaking on bullhorn]

[indistinct shouting]

[narrator] There have been two deadly Arab revolts

since 1967...

[indistinct shouting]

[gunshots]

...called the Intifadas.

-[indistinct shouting] -[gunshots]

[Moshe] Right before we moved, this was in '85,

before the Intifada, before the Oslo Accords.

The obsession with the settler movement

became stronger and stronger as we went into Oslo days.

[narrator] The Intifadas led to the signing of two peace agreements

called the Oslo Accords.

-Enough of blood and tears. Enough! -[crowd clapping]

[narrator] In 2005, as a result of the Oslo peace process...

[loud whirring]

[squeaking and rattling]

...8600 settlers were forcibly removed

from the Gaza settlements known as Gush Katif.

[indistinct shouting]

The government called it, "Land for peace."

The settlers called that betrayal.

I, I came from Gush Katif.

And, uh, if you heard about Gush Katif,

it's next to Gaza.

Really, I was in this whole thing, very deeply.

It was like, "You can't hear our voice.

We're-- we're crying," you know,

"we're calling for help."

And it's, like, silence. No one can hear us.

You know, it really hurts when someone takes you out of your house,

and it's not about moving away.

It's not about moving your furniture.

It's something else.

It's like taking your life, and...

...it's gone!

[indistinct shouting]

In the Oslo Accords,

over 33 communities were expelled

from those areas in Gaza and four from the North Shomron.

And, um, w-- what was said was,

"the Jews will leave their homes and then there'll be peace."

But in essence, what happened from that was that

the Jews left their homes,

and those homes became launching grounds

for missiles fired on Tel Aviv.

The will and testament of these heroes...

...is that, "We go on and build a land," and that's what they want to do,

what they wanna do. This family, the Fogel family,

where they come from? They came from Gush Katif, from Gaza.

They were thrown out of their homes by the State of Israel.

And they said, "We're not stopping our pioneers.

We wanna continue that." They came here to Itamar to build a life for themselves.

[wind blowing]

[light tense music]

[man] This isNews 8 at Eleven.

Tonight, the local Israeli community is calling for justice

after the brutal murder of a family in the West Bank settlement of Itamar.

News 8'sRichard Allyn is here now with reaction

to the senseless killings from a family friend.

Well that's right. This is, according to the Israeli military,

an act of terror that is now receiving condemnation

from the West Bank to San Diego.

Five family members knifed to death in their beds.

And tonight, the search continues for those responsible.

[man] On the phone, we have Leah Goldsmith,

who is in Itamar right now

with a, uh, very hot situation there.

[Leah] At this very moment, we were told

to stay inside and lock the door, close the windows.

If I'm being listened to by Jews,

I'd like you all to know this is Eretz Yisrael and we feel alone.

-[shattering] -[indistinct chatter]

We could barely even grasp

what was going on and what happened

'cause we were worried that these terrorists

that went in and, and murdered a father and mother and three children

could've gone on to someone else's house and did the same thing,

and we didn't know.

[ominous music]

[Leah] Moshe took his rifle and he ran.

[Moshe] So we ran from house to house, knocking on every door

and seeing if you were okay.

The situation was totally black out.

[crickets chirping]

[siren wailing]

[melancholic music]

[dog barking]

[car door shuts]

[distant howling]

[dog barking]

[Moshe] The massacre of the family inside the house...

...and there was blood everywhere on the floor and o-- on the walls.

There was just-- bloody mess everywhere.

It's a nightmare, you know. It's horrifying.

[Amir] The murderers, they were planning how to run out,

so they climbed over the sofa.

one of the kids was sleeping on that sofa.

He didn't wake up, didn't cry.

[Mosha] Murderers, they escaped from the window,

and not even seeing that there were two boys, Roi and Yishai.

And they survived the, uh, murderer's claws.

[music continues]

Tamar Fogel, the eldest daughter,

12 years old at the time,

comes back from being at a friend's,

and then she notices that the door of the house is locked

and she hears a child crying inside the house.

[child crying]

It was the younger brother, who was trying to wake up the father.

She was able to wake up the child that was on the couch,

who-- he opens the door, she walks in

and she sees the bloodbath all over the house.

-She starts to scream. -[screaming]

[sighs]

[melancholic music]

[sighs]

I was literally broken. I couldn't move and I had to run the community.

Don't forget, I was the mayor of the community.

People wanted me to tell the world what happened,

and the Internet was really at its full bloom.

And the fact that instantly you could reach the world

and find out what's going on.

So, I got to the Fogel house.

A friend of mine comes out and tells me,

you know, wha-- what is going on in the house, that there are...

...people killed in there.

Little Hadas, a little baby, just slaughtered in the house.

And the community, of course, is-- many people are frightened.

People's hearts are broken.

This family was a family of angels.

And, you know, what can I say?

I know everyone's saying to themselves,

"Wow, you guys must be, you know, crazy.

How are you guys dealing with all these terrible things?"

[wind blowing]

[Leah] I remember walking over to the window

and pulling aside the curtain and saying,

"Am I being cursed? Am I being blessed?"

I, I did not want to even look at the mountains.

Most of Israel was absolutely horrified

because... so many members of one family, five people,

parents and three of their children, killed in their beds.

I mean, a home is supposed to be safe.

My name is Greer Faye Cashman.

I write for The Jerusalem Post.

I've been a journalist almost all my working life.

Places like Itamar, they're usually well-guarded,

and to be infiltrated by two terrorists

is just a horrible thing under any circumstances.

[Nitsana] That... put the entire country in a shock.

People understand that you can't just disengage

from these communities, that you have to protect them.

[music continues]

The Fogel murders are often used as the terrorist attack

to... represent

the level of hatred

that exists on the other side because...

...they targeted an innocent family.

They weren't soldiers. They weren't--

it wasn't a military objective, it was a residential home.

Wherever it is in the world, it was people

who are just living their daily lives.

Activities by terrorists usually take place in the open.

Not that there's any excuse for it, but they blow up buses,

they blow up, uh, shopping malls,

it's all in public places.

And this was penetrating what is supposed to be

the safest place in the world, somebody's home.

And penetrating at night when everybody was asleep.

And I think it made people realize that you cannot take

anything in this world for granted,

not even the safety of your own home. And it doesn't matter

where you live, it doesn't matter whether you're in the West Bank

or in the middle of Tel Aviv.

[music continues]

[crickets chirping]

I don't feel guilty, um, but, uh, I feel, uh, responsible--

responsibility about, uh, I, uh, the manager,

I am, uh, the-- and it's, uh, very difficult to me.

I feel, uh, very...

...very sad, uh, every day.

[deeply inhales] Yeah, so--

[music continues]

[wind blowing]

[high-pitched ringing]

[indistinct chatter]

[Amir] I remember standing in the crowd there,

it was very difficult for me.

Thousands of people from all over came.

[camera shutters clicking]

[music continues]

The toughest part, I think, was to see that, like...

...five graves in a row.

And the last one was a tiny baby grave.

[sighs] It's j--

[inaudible]

[crying]

[child giggling]

[crickets chirping]

[birds chirping]

[tense music]

The IDF has begun, in a military operation, to try and put our hands

on these perpetrators.

[Moshe] After the Fogel murders, there was a massive manhunt.

A family had just been brutally murdered,

and the killers were still at large.

It was excruciating, especially for the surviving family members.

[indistinct chatter]

[Moshe] There were IDF checkpoints, roadblocks.

Our villages were under curfew.

[man indistinctly speaking] ...have been conducted

in the village of Awarta by the IDF and the Shomron Brigade.

We will do whatever it takes

to stop them, to pursue them.

-[engines rumbling] -[indistinct shouting]

[Moshe] Weeks went by. There were no arrests.

[music continues]

Then, we got the news.

I can report to you that in the last couple of days,

we have captured the terrorists who have committed the crime

of the murder of the Fogel family from the village of Itamar.

We can say that the murders are in our hands.

Uh, it shows us that the terrorist organization motivation

is still high to kill.

Hatred is a contagious disease

of ec-- epidemic proportions,

really and truly.

You teach somebody to hate,

and you don't give them a reason not to hate,

you only give them reasons to hate.

Like, in the case of the Palestinians,

"The Jews took our land."

That's a good enough reason, for starters.

Hatred beget-- begets hatred.

So, they hate us a bit more, we hate them a bit more,

and goes on and on and on. And you get a pyramid of hatred.

[ominous music]

Sometimes, the terror attacks drive from a general purpose.

People feel that they have to participate in jihad and go-- go and kill Jews.

Sometimes are made as a revenge.

The uncle of the two terrorists, uh, was a terrorist himself.

He went and killed three children and a security guard,

and then was killed by the Israeli forces.

And the two nephews wanted to revenge.

And they went and killed three children of their own.

You know, Abraham had two sons, and God told him

that his sons would inherit this land,

and that his sons would be,

like, just grains of the sand and the stars in the sky.

But we don't know whether Isaac was the sand or the stars

or Ishmael was the sand or the stars.

And so, they haven't figured it out yet.

I don't hate Arabs. I don't hate anybody

because they are what they are.

Um, I hate people for what they might do,

but not for who they are.

[ominous music]

[Amir] They confess, and not only, they're very proud of it.

They managed to kill five Jews. For them, it's a big thing.

[Nitsana] They indicted them in the military court in Judea and Samaria.

They filed an indictment for terrorism,

and they found them guilty for terrorism.

To behead a three-month-old baby is beyond comprehension.

[wind blowing]

Who kills babies?

People in Israel wanted to have them executed,

but it was very wise of the court

to refrain from imposing, uh, that kind of sentence on them,

because they would then become a martyr.

And we don't want killers to be martyrs.

[Amir] We're trying to, to move on.

It's hard.

And...

...I'm not focusing on those terrorists.

I don't pay attention. I, I don't care about them.

I really, like, don't wanna mention them.

I don't wanna--

like, I don't care about them at all.

The, the...

[stutters]

...it might be, like...

...the only thing I do care is that...

...they're s-- they're still alive.

I think that's... a bit annoying me,

that they're still alive.

[somber music]

Th-- those terrorists deser-- deserve to die.

If there was a-- a death penalty in Israel,

I think that they were the two firsts...

...that should, should get that punishment.

-[wind howling] -[rattling and thudding]

Wow.

[upbeat music]

In Israel, the Statute of Limitation is seven years

to bring a lawsuit.

My name is Nitsana Darsha-Leitner.

I'm the president of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center.

Days before the Statute of Limitation was over,

the Fogel family approached us,

the grandparents approached us

and asked if now they can bring the lawsuit,

before it will be too late,

because it was in the back of their mind

that they had to pursue justice,

but they couldn't bring themselves to do it.

It takes a lot to go and dive back into the case.

To relive the case, it's a horrible experience.

The Palestinian Authority denounced the Fogel family murder.

However, it was done by two terrorists,

and now, um, after trial, spend their,

um, sentence in jail,

and they receive a salary from the Palestinian Authority.

They give them 12,000 shekels a month.

When you go and carry intentional attack, you are responsible.

If you want to impose this responsibility to your employer,

if you cannot prove that he gave the order to go and kill,

but you can prove that he was happy with your acts,

not only happy with your acts,

but he actually paid you money for the act,

that proves liability.

This is why the Palestinian Authority is liable.

This is why the Palestinian Authority is

one of the defendants in the lawsuit.

[singing in Hebrew]

[wind blowing]

Today, this house is no more the Fogel family's house.

Although this old neighborhood has-- it's-- is named afterward,

after the family.

This is the Fogel Street, we call it.

Uh, this is the Fogel neighborhood.

This house today is a living house.

There's a family living here, there are people that are going on with their lives.

Um, this family has-- got new children, everything is going on.

Um, for a year-- for a year and a half

after the Fogel family's murder,

uh, the life here stopped.

Everything was dark.

The windows, t-- all the lights were down.

[singing in Hebrew]

[Amir] That's it. One family left,

but the, the spirit is going on.

What is to be a settler?

Um, to be a settler is to live in the West Bank

in Judea and Samaria,

but otherwise, to be a settler is also to live

in the country of Israel.

[wind blowing]

[gentle music]

In Itamar, we're facing the mountain of the blessing and the mountain of the curse.

Those two mountains are big symbols

of the Jewish history about this area.

Right in the middle of the, the mountains, we have...

...plenty of stories of the Torah,

of the Bible that were inside Nablus, inside Shechem.

[Leah] Here's the resting place of Yosef, who had a dream.

He maintained complete faith,

and in the end, his dreams came true.

And that's exactly the story of us,

the settlers. We had a dream.

We wanna go there to pray on the tomb of Joseph.

We're not allowed to go there. Not alone.

Not on daytime.

The stipulation under the Oslo Accords

was to leave the city of Shechem.

But they said, "For religious purposes,

we will leave the holy sites open for Jews."

[light ominous hip-hop music]

[indistinct chatter]

[Amir] We go there in armed buses with plenty of soldiers.

We have to go in, say our prayer, and get out.

[indistinct chatter]

[tense music]

[crickets chirping]

[indistinct chatter]

[drone whirring]

[shofar blowing]

[upbeat music playing]

[crowd clapping]

[man laughs]

[indistinct chatter]

[Amir] We're now at the Joseph's Tomb

in the center of th-- of the city of Shechem.

And the Arabs call the city Nablus,

which comes from a space here

the Roman emperor called it "new city."

You see up here, Mount Gerizim, the mountain of the blessing.

Right up there, Mount Ebal, the mount of the curse.

And we're just in the middle, uh, b-- in between

those two enormous mountains,

in the middle of the city of Shechem.

[indistinct chatter]

-[shushing] -[Yossi speaking Hebrew]

[praying in Hebrew]

[singing in Hebrew]

[Amir] Orthodox Judaism forbids men and women from praying together.

So the woman must say their prayers

from the courtyard outside the tomb.

Even with an army escort,

traveling into the heart of Nablus

is dangerous, and attacks occur often.

[distant gunshots]

To the Palestinians,

it is an invasion of their city.

[distant explosion]

In this darkness, and even when we look around

-and we hear the bombs blow up just for-- -[loud explosion]

[singing and clapping continue]

[crickets chirping]

[light tense music]

[indistinct chatter]

Okay, so we are in Bruchin, one of the most beautiful, uh, villages in, uh, Samaria.

And what we see here, uh, is the new immigrants

that came from France just a, a few days ago.

And all those beautiful people that came to greet them

and tell them, "Thank you for coming here."

[indistinct chatter]

Uh, a lot of children 'cause, uh, we have this little, uh,

competition about demographics.

[Amir] Children bring joy.

That's one of the things that we're doing here,

making new lives, making a new generation go on.

The Jewish nation is the oldest nation in the world,

so we have to go on.

[chuckles] We said, "Well, listen.

You can come everywhere in Israel, you know,

you can come to Tel Aviv, you have the beach.

But here, they are part of something that is bigger than us."

There's something that everyone wants in this life.

[crowd clapping]

[upbeat music playing]

Uh, we just arrived in Israel ten days ago.

Uh, now, I came from Strasbourg,

but I was born in Morocco, in Casablanca.

You know, in Strasbourg, we close a chapter of our,

our life and we open a new here.

We always say it's, it's like the wedding.

When you got married to someone,

you just felt in your heart that it's the good decision.

[speaking Hebrew]

[cheering]

It's not just you arrived in some place

where everything is already built,

wher-- no, we're here to build something,

and that's why we wanted to come here.

You know, I, I'm from Morocco.

I live with Arab people. Uh, it's not like, uh, it's strange to me.

[upbeat music playing]

[man speaking Hebrew]

[crowd singing and clapping]

[gentle music]

[wind blowing]

[Achishena] So, uh, we are in Itamar.

I was born here, I grew up here.

Well... [laughs]

...the family surprised me because I just got engaged.

Uh, this is my room. Welcome.

There is a range right behind Itamar.

When I was a little girl, a soldier shot higher...

-[gunshot] -...and the bullet came right through here,

all the way over here.

And the bed was here, I was on top of the bed.

So it just went over me.

And by a really, really tiny, uh--

-So it went through here. -[bullet buzzing]

And then I didn't sleep in my room for a week. [laughs]

[music continues]

-Uh, lemon? -You know what? I'd like to get a melon.

-Right. -This one.

Yeah. [deeply exhales] I love also the corned beef.

-Maybe Friday night... [laughs] right? -[laughs] Yeah.

[speaking Hebrew]

-We're thinking about it. Yeah. [laughs] -[Leah] Yeah.

[Achishena] Okay. Um--

[Leah] It's been a long time since we shopped together

for Shabbat food.

Now it's time for Achishena to come into the kitchen

and move into the next phase of her life.

Start learning how to cook with mama.

[inaudible]

[soft pop]

-[Tomer] Well... -[man grunts]

[Tomer] I know it feels dangerous.

It doesn't matter how tough it goes.

Doesn't matter, um...

...if you're afraid.

If you don't have any faith...

...you'll break.

[gentle music]

People who have faith in something bigger than them...

...go on.

About five years ago, and I see a Palestinian car,

and suddenly the driver stops the car and he jumps out.

[speaks Arabic] "Help her! Help her!"

I take my vest, so people, like, can see that I'm a paramedic.

And this Palestinian father

comes out and he gives me the baby.

I start giving her oxygen,

she was breathing, she was just unconscious.

-And then, a half a minute later... -[baby crying]

...she starts crying, and I'm like,

"Wow! That's good!

She's crying. Okay. She's not unconscious anymore."

And like, we had, like, a hand shaking.

And that was, like, for me, it was like, "That's it. This is the moment."

People with people, just uniting each other.

As simple as that. Not, not anything heroic, not anything, like,

peace process, stuff like that. Just people to people.

We have a saying in Hebrew,

Devarim tovim.

"Do good things."

[music continues]

[speaking Hebrew]

[laughs]

[Moshe] We've been through, and Itamar,

through very hard times in our lifetime.

But with all the darkness, there's an optimistic side of the world,

and we have to be optimistic in our lives.

I think this message is something that every one of us--

that takes to our hearts.

-So again, it's a new beginning... -[laughter]

...we're going forward.

Last night, on shift, I sat down, like, for dinner

with an-- a friend that is a Muslim Arab nurse,

and she said, "Listen, we're cousins, we're related!"

And it's the same thing. We have very, very... similar stories

in our Bible and their Q-- Quran,

and, uh, we're from the nei-- same neighborhood,

this area of the Middle East.

Yeah, we are cousins. We have a lot of things in common.

That's why our signs say, in Hebrew and Arabic,

"Jews and Arabs wanna get home safely."

I hope that the world will have the strength to hear that.

I don't want anybody to die on any side of the conflict.

We're looking for peace that doesn't neglect

land from any side.

That's what I think this is all about.

We wanna get home safely.

[Greer] When God created man, he created only one,

and we're all descended from that one.

[Moshe] We are blessed, we are all blessed.

[gentle music]

[wind blowing]

[indistinct chatter]

[bell chiming]

[bird chirping]

[Amir] We're here in the ancient city of Jerusalem,

the holiest place in the world for Muslims,

for Christians and for Jews.

It's a special thing.

To, to live in th-- in this ethnical place,

it-- it's very special.

[birds chirping]

We're here at the Kotel, the Western Wall,

the wall where Jews come to pray.

[music continues]

The stones on this wall are ancient stones.

We have a sentence that says,

"We have stones that have a beating heart,

and there are people that have a heart of a stone."

It's a very, uh, emotional place for me.

[inaudible]

Devarim tovim.

"Do good things."

[indistinct chatter]

We're trying.

[music increases]

[birds chirping]

[wind blowing]

[music continues]

["Bitter Sweet" by IZZLING]

♪ Let it be ♪

♪ What it has been ♪

♪ A mere glimpse of a love ♪

♪ Like a dove in flight ♪

♪ In the starlit night ♪

♪ Cast me away to the ocean ♪

♪ To the birds to the island... ♪

♪ ...of the unknown ♪

♪ It's bittersweet ♪

♪ My love ♪

♪ It's bittersweet ♪

♪ My love ♪

♪ Let me float into heaven ♪

♪ The great big sky ♪

♪ Let the light shine on me ♪

♪ And make me feel all right ♪

♪ And in this dream we're together ♪

♪ Well, heart to heart ♪

♪ Cheek to cheek ♪

♪ We'll wait for the next time ♪

♪ Or should we cut the cord and just drift apart? ♪

♪ Release me ♪

♪ Unleash me ♪

♪ Undo the shackles ♪

♪ From my heart ♪

♪ It's bittersweet ♪

♪ My love ♪

♪ It's bittersweet ♪

♪ My love ♪

♪ It's bittersweet ♪

♪ It's bittersweet ♪