Israel Vows Crackdown as Mosque Is Attacked

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

TEL AVIV—Israeli vandals torched part of a mosque in the West Bank early Thursday, defying government ministers' pledges to crack down on vigilante settlers who have stepped up attacks this week on Palestinian and army targets alike.

Vandals burned prayer carpets and scrawled the Hebrew word for "war" at the al-Noor mosque in the village of Burqa. The second mosque attack in as many days, it was part of a wave of vigilantism attributed to a group of young settlers who oppose Israeli concessions in the West Bank, including the evacuation of settlements, and who believe in retaliating against Palestinians and Israeli security forces.

Earlier this week, the groups vandalized an army facility and pelted Palestinians' cars with stones, sparking a national debate in Israel over whether the radicals should be officially classified as terrorists and subject to legal procedures used against Palestinian militants.

Thursday's vandalism came hours after the army dismantled unauthorized structures at an outpost settlement several miles away, Mitzpeh Yitzhar.

The army said Thursday it had promoted a general who was one of the first high-ranking officials to call the vigilante campaign "Jewish terror" and call for a crackdown, a move likely to deepen the tension between the some settlers and the army. He was promoted to chief of the army's Central Command, which is responsible for the West Bank.

On Thursday evening, incidents of rock-throwing by settlers prompted the army to close several West Bank roads to Palestinian traffic.

In the harshest Palestinian response yet to the violence, the spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas called the mosque torching "an act of war" by the settlers and said Israel's government was responsible. The spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, called on the international community to intervene to stop the attacks.

Israeli security authorities have been worried that the campaign by the vigilantes, who have often scrawled the words "Price Tag" at the scenes, could serve as the spark for a new protracted uprising, or intifada, among the Palestinians.

In a meeting with prominent settler leaders on Thursday, Israeli President Shimon Peres said the attacks on Palestinians were immoral and "add fuel to the fire" against Israel at a time of popular unrest across the Middle East.

The attacks this week cast a spotlight on a defiant vanguard of settlers who subscribe to a religiously driven ideology that sanctions attacks on non-Jews and encourages active resistance against Israeli government concessions in the West Bank, said experts.

Known as the Hilltop Youth for setting up tiny settlement outposts on West Bank mountains, the radicals are part of a younger generation made more religious and politically extreme by the disillusionment with Israel's 2005 evacuation from settlements in Gaza Strip.

That crisis drove many youths to break with the views of their parents, who saw themselves as emissaries of the state in claiming the West Bank for Israel. Instead, many in the younger generation were drawn to religious authorities who portrayed Israel's leaders and the government as a hostile entity which must be resisted.

These youths came to see settlement evacuation as "a war crime, a crime against humanity," which they took to justify any actions against it as legal, said Rabbi Yuval Sherlow, the head of a military-affiliated yeshiva the Tel Aviv suburb of Petach Tivkah. He said the group has developed an us-against-them discourse, in which they stand against "the army, the police, the Supreme Court and especially the media."

The radicals have come under criticism by many settlers. Gershon Mesika, the head of the Shomron regional settlers council, issued a statement late Wednesday denouncing settler attacks on the army that occurred earlier this week.

But another settler leader, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, accused the army of intentionally exaggerating the reports of the attack as part of a campaign against the settlers, according a statement released by the same regional council.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday approved a plan authorizing administrative detention and military courts for vigilante attack in the West Bank. Used commonly against Palestinians, the measures would enable officials to detain vandals for longer periods of time—up to eight days, compared with 24 hours for a civil proceeding—before going to a court hearing. He also called for more restraining orders against radical Jewish activists.

However, Mr. Netanyahu rejected recommendations to term the marauding attackers as "terrorists," likening them instead to left-wing Israeli protesters who participate in demonstrations with Palestinians against settlements and the Israeli army.

Newspaper commentators were skeptical that the harsher measures would change the situation on the ground. According to United Nations monitors, settler attacks against Palestinains have nearly tripled in two years.

"The rule of law is imposed selectively in the occupied territories. Violence has become commonplace, and now it has evolved into a contagious disease," wrote Boaz Okun in the Yediot Ahronot daily. "And hence the attempt to return to some form of human dignity ends in failure."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204844504577100743132859120.html

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Published 12:11 14.12.11 Latest update 12:11 14.12.11

IDF soldiers should have shot rioting Jewish extremists, MK says

Former Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer responds to infiltration of dozens of right-wing activists into West Bank army base; Tzipi Livni: This is a struggle for Israel's character.

By Haaretz

Israeli soldiers should have shot right-wing rioters while they assaulted army personnel, Labor MK and former Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said on Wednesday.

Ben-Eliezer's comments came after some 50 settlers and right-wing activists entered a key West Bank military base early Tuesday morning and threw rocks, burned tires, and vandalized military vehicles. Right-wing activists also assaulted a top Israel Defense Forces officer.

The settlers were acting in response to a rumor that the IDF would act to evict a West Bank settlement in accordance with an August Supreme Court ruling.

Referring to the incident on Wednesday, Ben-Eliezer, said that a "gang of criminals took a brick, slammed it in the [iDF officer's] face and nearly killed him. It's a sham that no one was arrested, it's a shame that no one fired, that no one responded."

"What happened yesterday is terror, pure and simple, terror," the former minister said, adding: "I don't differentiate between Jew and Arab when someone's trying to kill you."

Opposition Leader and Kadiman chairperson Tzipi Livni also referred to recent attacks, saying that there was a direct link "between the exclusion of women from the public sphere and assaults on army officers and the burning down of mosques."

"This is an ideological wave that wishes to institute a different country here with a world view that forces something that is unrelated to a Jewish tradition on a secular majority," Livni said, adding: "This is nothing less than a struggle for the nation's character sponsored by [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's silence."

Earlier Wednesday, arsonists set fire to a deserted mosque in central Jerusalem, also a noted Muslim historical site. There was no structural damage reported and the damage mainly consisted of the blackening of walls and graffiti reading “Price Tag,” and anti-Islamic phrases.

Later on Wednesday, settler leaders, who have been denouncing the recent violence against the IDF and Islamic places of worship, began attacking the left for its zealous attacks on settlers, saying that the left was not interested in stopping the violence, but rather only in attacking settlers.

“It is difficult to free oneself from the notion that many of them [the left] are not really interested in the wellbeing of Brigade commander Efrayim, and all they want is to attack settlers politically, harm their public image, and possibly physically hurt them,” said Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements.

“We will continue decisively fighting the violence undeterred, but also the hypocrite left that is only interested in destroying all that was built in the West Bank,” he added.

“The Council of Samarian Settlers demands that Netanyahu insures that the new special taskforce he is putting together will first of all forcefully deal with the serial rioters, that weekly disrupt the work on the security fence, harming the IDF’s soldiers and officers with stones and Molotov cocktails, and vandalizing military vehicles,“ the council said in a statement.

“It is inconceivable that the Prime Minister act in such a hypocritical manner, and use all the forces at his disposal to deal solely with frustrated Jews, while ignoring the relentless lawbreakers well- known to the security forces “, the Council added.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

If the Jews had any sense they would start sticking these nut cases in prison along with the rabbi's who get them going in the first place.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

I don't see any justification for not labeling these Radical Jewish Settlers terrorists.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I don't see any justification for not labeling these Radical Jewish Settlers terrorists.

Wrong religion. Get with the program, man.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Wrong religion. Get with the program, man.

I thought all religious types were terrorists.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I thought all religious types were terrorists.

Then you haven't been paying attention around here. Any reader of this here forum knows that only Muslims are terrorists.

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

The Middle East problem could be solved quite easily.

In fact, it could have been prevented all along by not allowing the Jews back in 1948 to occupy Palestine and call it Israel and pretend it belongs to them because their imaginary god in heaven who has a name that can't be pronounced and declared them to be the chosen people and all others goy who are worthless, told them so.

The line between religion and insanity is blurred. Very blurred.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Brother Hesekiel

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

The Middle East problem could be solved quite easily.

In fact, it could have been prevented all along by not allowing the Jews back in 1948 to occupy Palestine and call it Israel and pretend it belongs to them because their imaginary god in heaven who has a name that can't be pronounced and declared them to be the chosen people and all others goy who are worthless, told them so.

The line between religion and insanity is blurred. Very blurred.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

True. They should have let Patton remilitarize the German Army, push the Russians out of Europe, and then give the Jews half of Pre-WWII Germany as their own sovereign territory. But, that is the problem with history, it all happened in the past, and generally bears little resemblance to what is happening in the present. Luckily in the case of Germany and the Diasporic Semites, it's not too late to fix that little mistake of history.

Edited December 17, 2011 by Crusty Old Perv

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

True. They should have let Patton remilitarize the German Army, push the Russians out of Europe, and then give the Jews half of Pre-WWII Germany as their own sovereign territory. But, that is the problem with history, it all happened in the past, and generally bears little resemblance to what is happening in the present. Luckily in the case of Germany and the Diasporic Semites, it's not too late to fix that little mistake of history.

They belong in Israel, not Europe. Another half century or so Israel will be back to it's old borders, and that will be that. The Arabs will go back to the sand dunes and eventually all will be forgotten.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

They belong in Israel, not Europe.

Why? Their generational homes were in Europe before they were displaced by the Germans. There were already folks living in Palestine before they were displaced by folks leaving Europe after the war was over. Europe's problem, not the Arabs.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Why? Their generational homes were in Europe before they were displaced by the Germans. There were already folks living in Palestine before they were displaced by folks leaving Europe after the war was over. Europe's problem, not the Arabs.

And before they left Israel for Europe, their homes were in Israel. They came around full circle.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

And before they left Israel for Europe, their homes were in Israel. They came around full circle.

There wasn't an Israel for them to leave 2000 years ago. Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. That's a long time to hold open a reservation, even if you were a good tipper.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

There wasn't an Israel for them to leave 2000 years ago. Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. That's a long time to hold open a reservation, even if you were a good tipper.

http://www.bible-lands.net/maps <----- Roman times. Israel isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It's back like crack.