Joel Brinkley
Now that a far right-wing government has governed
In the
But in just the last few days these settlers have burned two mosques, torched Palestinian homes and cars, threatened Israelis they perceive to be leftist, and attacked an Israeli army base, wounding one of its officers. That final act, attacking the army, finally roused the government from its lackadaisical approach to the violence.
These militants, intent on challenging anyone who questions their perceived right to live in the occupied
Now, suddenly, Netanyahu is giving the army new powers to arrest these malefactors and send them to administrative detention -- imprisonment without charge, usually reserved for Palestinians. Why suddenly now? "Whoever lays a hand on IDF soldiers or Israeli policemen will be severely punished," Netanyahu vowed. So much for all those Palestinian and liberal Israeli victims the settlers have threatened and attacked over the last three years.
Last week, 20 human-rights groups, including
In recent weeks, the Palestinians' most significant bit of militancy came when six of them, reporters in tow, tried to ride a bus from the
(For purposes of this column, I am writing
The Jewish extremists first announced their presence in
Since then, the militants' avowed policy has been to attack Palestinians or liberal Israelis as payback every time the army removes an illegal settlement outpost, or someone in
After hundreds of attacks over several years, last week Defense Minister
He had already made plain his lack of respect for Palestinians a few days earlier, when he voiced his support for a bill that would forbid the use of loudspeakers when mosques offer their "annoying" calls to prayer. Twenty percent of
Reflecting on the settler extremists, The Forward, an American Jewish newspaper, noted that it was a "sad irony that settler thugs and their allies" are terrorizing Palestinians when over the centuries Jews themselves have suffered "a long and bitter legacy of persecution defined by pogroms" and worse.
As the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv put it: "A very bad wind is blowing through the country."
Twitter: @ihavenet
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