Israel's breeding ground for Jewish terrorism

[Spring Onion]

Israel's breeding ground for Jewish terrorism
Jonathan Cook, 30 September 2008



Left-wing Israeli activists demonstrate against Jewish settlements in the West Bank city of Hebron, January 2007. (Mamoun Wazwaz/MaanImages

)


The words "Jewish" and "terrorist" are not easily uttered together by Israelis. But just occasionally, such as last week when one of the country's leading intellectuals was injured by a pipe bomb placed at the front door of his home, they find themselves with little choice.

The target of the attack was 73-year-old Zeev Sternhell, a politics professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem specializing in European fascism and a prominent supporter of the left-wing group Peace Now.

Shortly after the explosion, police found pamphlets nearby offering 1.1 million shekels ($300,000) to anyone assassinating a Peace Now leader. The movement's most visible activity has been tracking and criticizing the growth of the settlements in the West Bank.

Sternhell, whose leg was injured in the blast, warned that this attack might mark the "collapse of democracy" in Israel. He has earned the enmity of the religious far-right by justifying the targeting of settlers by Palestinians in their resistance to occupation.

Earlier in the year the professor was awarded the Israel Prize for political science. The settlers' own news agency, Arutz Sheva, ran a story at the time headlined "Israel Prize to go to Pro-Terror, Pro-Civil War Prof."

The shock provoked in Israel by the bombing partly reflected the rarity of such attacks. Most Israelis regard the use of violence by Jews against other Jews as entirely illegitimate, which partly explains the kid-glove approach generally adopted by the security forces when dealing with the settlers.

There are a handful of precedents, however, for these kind of attacks. In 1983, Emil Grunzweig was killed when a right-winger hurled a hand grenade into a crowd of Peace Now activists marching against Israel's invasion of Lebanon. And 12 years later Israelis were left reeling when a religious settler, Yigal Amir, shot dead their prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin.


Violence directed at the Jewish Left typically peaks during periods when the religious far-right believes a deal with the Palestinians may be close at hand. Rabin paid the price for his signing of the Oslo accords. Equally, Sternhell appears to be the address for settler grievances over the government's ongoing talks with the Palestinians over a partial Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.

Certainly, the mood among the religious settlers has grown darker since the disengagement from Gaza three years ago. A significant number subscribe to the belief that, in betraying what they perceive to be the Jewish people's Biblical birthright to Palestinian territory, the government proved itself unworthy of their loyalty. Others believe that the settlers themselves failed a divine test in not facing down the government and army.

Either way, many far-right settlers are turning their backs on those secular laws that clash with their own convictions. One Israeli observer has noted that these settlers no longer see their chief loyalty to the state of Israel but to the Land of Israel, a land promised by God not politicians.

The pamphlet found near Sternhell's home, signed by a group called the "Army of Liberators," read: "The State of Israel has become our enemy."

The Shin Bet, Israel's secret police, have a Jewish department dedicated to tracking the activities of Jewish terrorists. Unlike the Shin Bet's Arab department, however, it is small and underfunded. It has also proved largely ineffectual in dealing with the threat posed by the far-right.

Jewish extremists who attack Israeli soldiers or Palestinians in the occupied territories, openly incite against Palestinians or express unlawful views rarely face charges, even when there is clear evidence of wrongdoing.

The general lawlessness among the West Bank settlers has reached new peaks, underscored this month when settlers from Yitzhar went on what was widely described as a "pogrom" against Palestinians in the neighboring village of Asira al-Qabaliya. The settlers were caught on film firing live ammunition at the villagers, but the police have so far failed to issue indictments.

Also, often forgotten, the so-called Jewish underground has a history of targeting Palestinians inside Israel, including those with citizenship. A car bomb narrowly avoided seriously injuring the wife of Arab Knesset member Issam Makhoul in 2003. Two years later, in the run-up to the Gaza disengagement, a settler-soldier, Natan Zada, shot dead four passengers on a bus to the Israeli Arab city of Shafa'amr.


Groups such as the Temple Mount Faithful, which seek to blow up the mosques of al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock in the Haram al-Sharif of Jerusalem's Old City so that a third Jewish temple can be built in their place, also face little recourse from the Shin Bet.

By contrast, the Shin Bet's Arab department runs an extensive network of Palestinian informers in the occupied territories and is reported by human rights groups to use torture to extract information from Palestinian detainees.


Inside Israel, the Arab department regularly investigates Israel's own Palestinian citizens, especially the Islamic movements over their donations to charities in the occupied territories. It has also been hounding parties like the National Democratic Assembly of Azmi Bishara that demand equal rights.

Like Palestinians in the occupied territories, Palestinian citizens risk being locked up on secret evidence.

Israel's leading columnist Nahum Barnea noted last week that the Shin Bet's inability to find and arrest Jewish terrorists stemmed from "deliberate policy" and "emotional obstacles" -- his coy way of suggesting that many in the Shin Bet share at least some of the settlers' values, even if they reject their methods.


Prof. Sternhell made much the same point in a radio interview from his hospital bed when he noted that Yitzhak Shamir, when he was prime minister, had defined the Jewish underground as "excellent young men, real patriots."

In this vacuum of law enforcement, the far-right regularly and openly engages in unlawful activities, often without serious threat of punishment. Many of its leaders, such as Noam Federman, Itamar Ben Gvir and Baruch Marzel, all based in Hebron, are believed to have close links to the outlawed Kach movement, which demands the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the region.

Ben Gvir, who leads a group known as the Jewish National Front, denied that his faction was involved in the attack on Sternhell but refused to condemn it.

Although the head of the Shin Bet, Avi Dichter, immediately branded the attack on Sternhell as "a nationalist terror attack apparently perpetrated by Jews," it is noticeable that no Israelis are demanding the demolition of the perpetrators' homes.

That contrasts strongly with the response last week after a Palestinian youth drove a car at a group of Israeli soldiers near the Old City of Jerusalem. Israeli politicians called for the youth's home to be destroyed and his family to be made homeless.

In the general outcry against the bomb attack last week, it was left to Prof. Sternhell to remind Israelis that most Jewish terrorism was in fact directed not at people like himself but at Palestinians.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is Jonathan Cook's News Archive - Israel Palestine.

This article originally appeared in The National published in Abu Dhabi and is republished with permission.



ei: Israel's breeding ground for Jewish terrorism

 

[Spring Onion]

So we are now seeing Jewish Takfiris.

hmmm good.

 

[Spring Onion]

Officer lambasts rising Jewish extremism - The National Newspaper

Officer lambasts rising Jewish extremism


Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent
• Last Updated: October 03. 2008 12:01AM UAE / October 2. 2008 8:01PM GMT

Young Jewish settlers hurl stones at Israeli soldiers during street clashes in the West Bank town of Hebron. Marco Longari / AFP


JERUSALEM // The Israeli army officer in charge of the occupation of the West Bank, Gen Gadi Shamni, has lambasted extremist Jewish settlers, blaming rising levels of violence on the encouragement of their leadership and right-wing rabbis.

It is rare for a senior commander to speak so critically of the settlers, many of whom themselves serve in senior positions in the army.


In a lengthy interview with the Haaretz newspaper running today, marking the Jewish new year, Gen Shamni said: “In the past, only a few dozen individuals took part in such activity [settler violence], but today that number has grown into the hundreds.
“That’s a very significant change. These hundreds are engaged in conspiratorial actions against Palestinians and the security forces. It’s a very grave phenomenon.”


He said the extremists were “enjoying a tailwind and the backing of part of the leadership, both rabbinical and public, whether in explicit statements or tacitly”.

The timing of Gen Shamni’s comments is not accidental. In recent weeks, there has been a spate of settler attacks on soldiers in the West Bank. One had a dog set on him, another’s hand was broken, and a soldier in Hebron was beaten while trying to prevent settler children from throwing stones at Palestinians.
Soldiers were also set upon last month when settlers were tipped off that the army was planning to remove a single family from its makeshift camp at Yad Yair, west of Ramallah. The tyres of 10 military vehicles were slashed.

The contempt shown by some settlers for the army contrasts with the veneration with which it is regarded by much of the wider Israeli public.

Aryeh King, a settler leader in Jerusalem, dismissed Gen Shamni as a “political appointee” of former prime minister Ariel Sharon whose opinions did not reflect the reality on the ground. He said: “If the settlers are using violence, it is because they see that Palestinians do what they want, attack the settlements and burn our fields, and there is no response from the army.”
The general may have been emboldened to make his remarks by widespread outrage among Israelis at a pipe-bomb explosion last week at the home of Zeev Sternhell, a politics professor and outspoken opponent of the settler movement. Prof Sternhell was lightly injured in the blast. Jewish leaders in Hebron, among the most militant settlers, refused to condemn the attack.

In an example of the kind of support for violence among the settler leadership highlighted by Gen Shamni, Yisrael Rozen, a senior rabbi in the Gush Etzion settlements south of Jerusalem, published a pamphlet last month in which he said activists in the Peace Now organisation deserved the death penalty. He said the group’s members were worse than heretics and apostates.
Other right-wing rabbis have been quoted in the local media referring to Palestinians as subhuman or as animals, arguing that as non-Jews their lives are of inferior value.

Lawlessness among the settlers is on the rise, according to the Israeli security forces. Recorded attacks in the first half of this year – at 429 – are up 75 per cent on the previous two years.

Even then, a recent editorial in Haaretz noted, the vast majority of attacks on Palestinians go unrecorded. The paper attributed this in part to the fact that few Palestinians bother to report violence when they know that the Israeli police, army and courts rarely enforce the law on the settlers.
According to the human rights group Yesh Din, less than one in 10 reported attacks on Palestinians leads to an indictment. Most such cases end later in acquittal.

“For all practical purposes, the law is not the law, the settlers are the sovereign, and matters are handled as they decide,” the Haaretz editorial said.

The peak season for settler violence is about to arrive: the olive harvest, when Palestinian farmers venture out to pick their crops.
The rapid expansion of the settlements’ municipal jurisdiction in recent years means that most Palestinian olive groves are close to a settlement’s boundaries. According to Peace Now, the half a million settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have official control over more than 40 per cent of the territory.

In addition, the human rights group B’Tselem pointed out last month that the army had supported the annexation of large swathes of land by settlements east of Israel’s separation wall – that is, the settlements most likely to be given up in a deal with the Palestinians. These settlements are among the most militant. The confiscated lands have been formally classified as “special security areas”.
Sarit Michaeli, a spokesman for B’Tselem, said it was possible Gen Shamni found it easier to raise the issue of settler violence when soldiers as well as Palestinians were becoming the target of attacks.

“The problem traditionally has been that the army often washes its hands of law enforcement with the settlers, or even assists them. We hear commanders say that it is their job to fight Palestinian terror, not to deal with settler violence. That understanding of their responsibilities contradicts international law. As an occupying force, they must protect the safety and welfare of the Palestinian population.”
Ms Michaeli said B’Tselem was stepping up its campaign to bring settler violence to the attention of the Israeli and international public with its campaign, “Shooting Back”, in which video cameras are handed out to Palestinians in “hot spots” of the West Bank. About 50 extra cameras are being distributed to Palestinian farmers before the olive harvest.

“Several videos shot by Palestinians with our cameras have shown not only shocking images of settlers attacking Palestinians but also of the armed forces standing by and watching as it happens.”
One video, shot last month, shows Jews from the militant settlement of Yitzhar near Nablus in the central West Bank rampaging through the Palestinian village of Asira al Qabiliya. Soldiers are heard being ordered around by the settlers as they fire live ammunition into the village, smash up homes and shoot tear gas at Palestinians.

Akiva Eldar and Idit Zertal, two Israeli analysts, recently documented in their book Lords of the Land the close ties between the settlers and the army over many decades. They note that most of the settlements were originally set up as military posts; that army units are used to defend the settlements, even those unlicensed by the government; and that the settlers are given weapons by the army.
I

n addition, the army has established special units composed entirely of settlers and allowed them to serve in the occupied territories close to their settlements. Today, about one-third of the army’s company commanders are religious men, likely to have strong sympathies with the aims of the settlers.

Last year, Haggai Alon, a senior official in the ministry of defence, accused the army of furthering the settlers’ goals. He said it was co-operating with the settlers to implement “an apartheid policy” in which Palestinians were being ethnically cleansed from parts of the West Bank.
Despite the traditional close relations between the settlers and the army, Lior Yavne, of Yesh Din, said Gen Shamni’s comments “were not so brave”. The general had been careful to restrict his remarks only to a tiny minority of the settlers who were using violence, especially those targeting soldiers, Mr Yavne said.

Yesh Din suspects the rise in such attacks is part of a new policy by extremist groups among the settlers to attach a “price tag” to any actions, however small, taken by the army against the settlements.
According to the US-sponsored Road Map, a diplomatic plan to advance a Palestinian state, Israel is supposed to begin evacuating dozens of small settlements scattered across the West Bank.

“The hardline settlers want the army to see that whenever they move an empty caravan or bus from a hilltop or try to stop attacks on Palestinians, soldiers elsewhere in the West Bank will suffer retaliation,” said Mr Yavne.
In the Haaretz interview, Gen Shamni appears to be concerned that such “retaliation” is tarnishing the army’s image and hampering its effectiveness. “This is harming our ability to carry out security missions in the territories. We have to divert our efforts to there from other issues,” he said.

Amos Harel, a leading military correspondent in Israel, said the “weakness” of the army in curbing settler violence had become “particularly visible” in recent weeks.