Who will prevent the pogrom? (Ha'aretz editorial)

Last week, Palestinian laborers were attacked by settlers in what the Israel Defense Forces described as an "attempted lynching." At various locations throughout the West Bank, Jewish hooligans have used guns, iron bars and hammers in an attempt to ignite the territories.

In one case, students of the Yeshuat Mordechai Yeshiva attacked five laborers who had come to work in the settlement of Nahliel with sticks and stones. In a second case, Nawaf Hanani of Nablus was beaten all over his body by armed settlers who forced him to get out of his truck. In a third case, Hebron settlers invaded an Arab house, attacked the residents and destroyed part of the ceiling with hammers. In all of these places, soldiers and policemen were in the vicinity. Granted, some of the assailants were arrested the same day, but they were later allowed to go home.

The lenient attitudes shown by the army and police allow the settlers to conclude that the state either cannot or will not deal with them. If a handful of rioters from Nahliel and Hebron get off scot-free after what the army itself defined as an attempted lynching, the next pogrom is virtually inevitable. The extreme right will stop at nothing to put a spoke in the wheels of disengagement, and the current clashes are merely an omen of what is to come.

Yet faced with the determination of the right-wing battalions scattered throughout the West Bank, which are armed with weapons that the IDF gave them, the defense establishment is dithering over issues that should not be troubling it at all, such as whether it is proper to close Gush Katif to visitors now, or whether the residents should be allowed to celebrate Pesach first. The coming Pesach will be no innocent holiday. Many of those who will visit the Gaza Strip will remain in order to disrupt the evacuation. It is important to remember the seder that Rabbi Moshe Levinger celebrated at the Park Hotel in Hebron 35 years ago: The guests at that seder have not left the city to this day.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/554565.html

Long live Ha'aretz!
Progressive Jewish press, wish we had that here. There is Jewish Voice for Peace.

though not all, by any means, the hard core settlers rights real faces shall now emerge and we shall find ourselves in a mirror position to that of the PA.....

will the IDF/police forces deal with them, as we expect that the PA deal with its own extremists?....if we dont, then we shall take the top prize in hypocrasy

What's yr feeling on how far the extremists among the settlers will go and how the IDF will be ordered to deal with them? Personally, I think a fair solution to the problem with extremists on both sides would be to find an arid and isolated spot on earth and dump them all out there to fight their GrudgeMatchToTheDeath without any chance of civilians and Israeli and Palestinian troops being targets for their hatred...

Violet...

where did you steal my little fantasy from?...though it was always an island somewhere in the S. Pacific with me.....

You ask how far will the settlers go?...the hardcore?...considering that I look upon them as I do the hamasnikim they will go far as they can. They've already been arested attempting to blow up a palestenians girls school....guess that takes away any "moral" superiorty that they might claim.

on the bright side, the israeli govt is not planning on using the IDF against them, one of the reasons is that the settlers will press official police complaints against individual soldiers, sort of messing up that soldiers life with court/lawyers etc. They'll be using police which, dont care about that, and wont have a problem in bashing their heads in (police are the same all over the world.....physical force is part of their job).

It will be a tough test of the israeli govt..but, Gaza is easy, the settlers there are not fanatics, and are willing to move out...and are "spitting out" some of the hard core elements that have moved in-that to me is a very good sign of responsability (what we've be asking of the palestenians all these years).

now it gets interesting....can we do what we've demanding of the palestenians.....are we "better then them?" is our society "more mature" or is it all just a bunch of BS?

I was thinking that "a fair solution to the problem with extremists on both sides would be to find an arid and isolated spot" in the Australian outback - with Crocodile Dundee and BHP Miners "and dump them all out there to fight their GrudgeMatchToTheDeath without any chance of civilians and Israeli and Palestinian" and Australian "troops being targets for their hatred."

I was thinking about the North Pole.

no chance of migration.

We don't need religious extremists here. Keep them on the other side of the world away from us! :)

we have plenty of our own racists to fill up the outback with thanks