[It is unfortunate that it takes violence against Jews for the JTA to really get interested in settler violence and extremism - AUPHR]
A recent attack against a left-wing Israeli figure appears to be part of a violent shift in strategy among radical settlers: They're now using violence against Palestinians, Israeli soldiers and Jews in their quest to hold onto the West Bank.
Published: 10/08/2008
JERUSALEM
(JTA) -- Marking the close of the Fast of Gedaliah, a mournful day that
commemorates the biblical-era political assassination of a Jew by
another Jew, some 200 religious and secular Israelis assembled outside
the Jerusalem home of Professor Ze'ev Sternhell with a blunt message:
No More Gedaliahs.
Or, bringing it into the modern age, as Sternhell put it, "We do not
want another Yitzhak Rabin," referring to the 1995 assassination of the
prime minister.
On Sept. 25, the Hebrew University professor, Holocaust survivor,
Israel Prize winner and outspoken peace activist was the target of a
pipe bomb attack suspected to have been carried out by right-wing
Jewish extremists.
"Our society has a problem and we must confront it," Sternhell said.
The attack on Sternhell appears to be part of a violent shift in
strategy among the more radical elements of the Jewish settler
movement. Jewish assaults on both Palestinians and Israeli soldiers in
the West Bank have seen a rise of late. The incidents often seem more
like planned operations than spontaneous actions, experts say.
The settlers seem to be sending a message to Israeli authorities: Any
operation against the settlers -- specifically, any attempted
evacuation of illegal outposts in the West Bank -- will elicit a new
type of response that is harsh and difficult to control.
"The army and the government need to know that every stone thrown at
us, any action against our settlements, will not be met with as if we
are suckers," Avri Ran, a prominent figure among the more hard-core
settlers, told JTA. "There is a price to be paid for attacks on Jews."
The strategy shift can be traced to the lessons settlers learned from
the experience of the Gaza Strip in 2005, when opponents of the
withdrawal and residents of Gaza’s Jewish settlement bloc mostly played
by the rules. They practiced passive disobedience but eschewed violence
as Israeli authorities came to remove them.
But the failure of their quest to thwart Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza,
as well as the government’s response, left them angry and
disillusioned, particularly the younger generation.
Their sense of betrayal, coupled with a view of the Jerusalem
government as corrupt, has fueled an anti-authority sentiment. This has
been most apparent among the so-called hilltop youth -- radical young settlers who establish and occupy illegal outposts atop hills in the West Bank and refuse to leave.
The price radical settlers have sought to impose on those seeking to
evict them includes setting fire to Palestinian fields and orchards,
blocking roads and even fighting with Israeli soldiers. Settlers
unleased a dog on one officer; another soldier had his arm broken in
recent confrontations. Most dramatically, settlers attacked a
Palestinian village in an incident Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described
as a pogrom.
The attack, in the West Bank village of Asira al Qibliya, followed the
infiltration of a Palestinian into the nearby settlement of Yitzhar, in
the northern West Bank, where an empty house was set on fire and a
9-year-old Jewish boy was stabbed. In response, Yitzhar residents tore
through the village, throwing rocks and opening fire, leaving several
Palestinians wounded.
Using unusually strong language, Olmert responded to the recent wave of
violence, including the attack on Sternhell, at a Cabinet meeting.
"An evil wind of extremism, of hatred, of malice, of violence, of
running amok, of breaking the law, of contempt for the institutions of
the state, is blowing through certain sections of the Israeli public
and threatens Israeli democracy,” he said.
The settlers’ actions also threaten the Israeli government’s ability to
carry out pledges that are part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process, including commitments made to the United States and the
international community to freeze settlement building and remove
illegal outposts from the West Bank.
Yizhar Be'er, the executive director of Keshev,
an organization that researches ideological violence in Israel,
described the recent events as a Jewish intifada, using the Arabic word
for uprising. He said it borrows directly from the Israeli government's
own playbook for quashing the second Palestinian intifada.
Specifically, fringe settlers are employing the deterrent doctrine
sometimes used by Israel known as the “price tag": Every aggressive act
will be met by an even more aggressive and painful response.
"This is the irony of history, that the approach of the Israeli
government against the Palestinians was adopted by the settlers to
fight democracy," Be’er said.
Thus, even if a single trailer is threatened with removal from a
settlement, "hell will be raised," Be'er said. That may mean fighting
against the Israeli army -- until now considered taboo -- or fanning
out to Palestinian villages to start disturbances and thereby overwhelm
army and police personnel.
"In the past, only a few dozen individuals were implicated" in such
behavior, Maj. Gen. Gadi Shadmi, the head of the Israel Defense Forces’
Central Command, told Israel’s daily Ha’aretz in a recent interview.
While most of the estimated 250,000 Israeli Jews living in the West Bank are law abiding, Shadmi said, the ranks of the radicals are growing.
"Today we are talking about several hundred people -- a very significant change," he said.
"These people are conspiring against the Palestinians and against
security forces," he added, making the army’s job more difficult.
Shadmi charged that some segments of the settlers’ leadership,
including rabbis, are giving the movement’s radical elements either
tacit or outright support.
While acknowleging the rise in violent tactics, the head of the
council that represents Jewish settlers in the West Bank said critics
are trying to make the settler community look bad.
"It needs to be known that last year the Palestinians damaged more
fields of Jews than the other way around,” said Dani Dayan of the Yesha
Council.
“Let there be no misunderstanding: Any attack on Jewish or Arab
property should be condemned, but there is an organized effort to
delegitimize the residents of Judea and Samaria," he said, using the
biblical names for the West Bank.
Perhaps because of the negative image of settlers, the council has
launched a public relations campaign with billboards across Israel that
proclaim "Judea and Samaria -- every Jew's story."
Meanwhile, within the mainstream settler movement are deep divisions
over what direction to take. A leaflet recently distributed in some
settlements and signed by two prominent settler leaders calls on the
public to join in the fight against outpost evacuations by dispersing
to exhaust security forces. The leaflet suggests blocking roads and
building more outposts, and exhorts youths to take hikes in
"unconventional areas" -- interpreted to mean near Palestinian
villages.
Rabbi Yuval Sherlow, considered a moderate leader in the religious
Zionist camp of which the settlers are a key part, said members of the
community’s leadership must offer support to those who reject violent
confrontation.
"There is a large periphery of people," he said, "and we need to give
them ideological and religious backing so they don't feel like they are
doing something wrong in obeying the law and fighting violence."