Two To Tango

After a quick prayer, Avi Shapiro and 12 other Jewish settlers put on their religious skullcaps, grabbed their semiautomatic rifles and headed toward Highway 60.

There, they pushed boulders, stretched barbed wire and set tires afire to form a barricade that, they said, would stop even the biggest of Palestinian taxis. Then they waited for a vehicle to arrive.

As they crouched in a ditch beside the road, Shapiro, the leader of the group, gave the settlers orders: Surround any taxi, ”open fire” and kill as many of the ”blood-sucking Arab” passengers as possible.

”We are doing what (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon promised but has failed to do: drive these sons of Arab whores from the Land of Israel,” said Shapiro, 42, who moved here with his wife and four children 3 years ago from Brooklyn. ”If he won’t get rid of the Muslim filth, then we will.”
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On a recent Sunday, Shapiro and the 12 other extremists spotted their first target: a white Palestinian taxi that had turned the corner and begun to rumble toward them. From a hill 50 yards away, the Jewish men could be seen removing the safety locks from the weapons. Their wives were grabbing extra ammunition clips. Their children, all of them younger than 12, were picking up rocks.

But the Palestinian driver, upon seeing the settlers, brought his Mercedes stretch taxi to a sudden stop 50 yards from the checkpoint. He quickly turned the car around. Cursing aloud, Shapiro ordered the men to open fire. The shooting lasted for 10 seconds.

At least two bullets hit the car. One shattered its back window. Several women wearing white Islamic headscarves could be heard screaming and seen ducking. It wasn’t known whether anyone was injured.

”We’ll keep this up until we eliminate all the Muslim filth,” Shapiro said.