West Bank settlers derided as terrorists for turning on their own army

Extremist Jewish settlers attacked a nearby IDF encampment after several mobile homes in a settlement outpost were demolished. Israeli security officials called for harsh measures.

|
Nasser Ishtayeh/AP/File
Israeli soldiers talks to Israeli settlers to form a buffer with Palestinians in a West Bank area between the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar and the Palestinian village of Burin, Jan. 2014. This week residents of Yitzhar and other sympathizers attacked a nearby Israel Defense Forces encampment, turning on the soldiers charged with protecting them.

For years extremist Jewish settlers have targeted Palestinians in retaliation for Israeli government efforts to curtail settlement growth, typically receiving only light punishment. But this week they turned on the soldiers charged with protecting them – and they may have gone too far. 

On Tuesday, residents of the settlement Yitzhar and other sympathizers attacked a nearby Israel Defense Forces encampment staffed by reservists, destroying their living quarters. Condemnation has been swift and strident: Current and former government officials have called for the attackers to be labeled terrorists and rounded up. The overarching sentiment is that Israel's so-called "price tag" settlers are out of control.

"What is going on in the territories is Jewish terror,"  Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet, told Yediot Ahronot. "All of the other definitions coming from the prime minister, from the ministers, or the president — 'hate crime,' ‘bad weeds,' and such — are meaningless. Laundered words. And until they do this, they won’t solve the problem."

This isn't the first time that vigilante settlers, who use the term "price tag" for their revenge attacks on Palestinians in response to Israeli efforts to curtail settlements, have attacked IDF targets. But they have never lashed out at guardposts of their own settlements, nor at reservists, who are seen by Israelis as sacrificing work and family for the state.

Security experts blame Israel's army, police, and government for yielding to the vigilante settlers for years, which emboldened them to risk igniting widespread Palestinian unrest. 

"If such an incident had occurred in an Arab village, the IDF would go from house to house, search for illegal weapons, and try to arrest the law breakers," wrote Alex Fishman, a defense analyst in the daily Yediot Ahronot newspaper. "Now the army is slightly annoying the residents leaving the settlement, checking papers, asking questions. The police made an arrest. That’s nothing."

Roused from sleep

The IDF encampment sits on an isolated plateau between the hilltop settlement of Yitzhar and two Palestinian villages in the valley below. On Tuesday morning, dozens of settlers roused the reservist soldiers from sleep and told them stand down. They proceeded to destroy a tent, a latrine, and a gas heating installation.

Though an official statement from the settlement stopped short of justifying the attack, it accused the government of engaging in "collective punishment" against residents in retaliation for the vandalism of a military jeep. Yitzhar residents say the assault was a way to protest the destruction of several mobile homes in the settlement's various unauthorized outposts within the last week. In the days before Tuesday's attack, settlers also punctured the tires of IDF vehicles. 

"It’s a time bomb waiting to happen," says Oren Rosenfeld, an Israeli film producer who has spent years documenting the price tag activists. "It was more of a message: 'This tent is a symbol of you being here and we’re not going to have it.' The army says that they are there to protect them from the Arabs, but [price tag activists] think they’re there to protect the Arabs from them."

On Wednesday, Israeli police officers manned a makeshift checkpoint at the highway turnoff for Yitzhar and stopped motorists for identification – an effort that bore a resemblance to security measures taken against the Palestinians. It led to at least six arrests for suspected involvement in the assault on the IDF base, according to a police spokesperson. 

"We have to call this by its name. Anyone who attacks IDF soldiers and the Border Police is a terrorist in every sense," said Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich, who, in an interview with Israel Radio, said the government needs to use the same tactics against the vigilantes that it uses against Palestinians. "We have to remove the gloves."

Administrative detention

Vigilante settlers have cut down Palestinians' olive trees, scrawled graffiti on mosques, vandalized cars and even occasionally torched homes. Those accused in such attacks, including some from Yitzhar, have been issued restraining orders that ban them from the West Bank on the grounds they could incite violence and undermine security.

Avi Dichter, another ex-Shin Bet director, told Yediot Ahronot that Israel’s legal system is too "forgiving" of the settlers and punishment is a "joke." Others are calling for the use of administrative detention, a controversial order currently used only on Palestinians and which allows security authorities to hold suspects without immediate trial in order to aid an investigation or prevent an immediate threat.

Nestled in the mountains south of Nablus, Yitzhar has long been a hub for religious radical settlers, many of whom are followers of rabbis who see the Israeli state as morally corrupt because its legal system is not based on Jewish law. Distrust of the government and IDF is widespread and deepening.

"Jews love Jews"

The education ministry cut off funding for Yitzhar's yeshiva, a Jewish religious school, after rabbis teaching there were accused of fomenting violence against nearby Arab villages. Teenage boys with overgrown hair sidelocks and large loosely knit skullcaps, signs of religious devotion, wander the streets with T-shirts reading "Jews love Jews."

Residents believe they are entitled to squat on the surrounding hilltops, regardless of government authorization. Hilltop youths say the outposts are littered with debris from mobile homes destroyed by the Israeli government. Once the demolition is over, they always rebuild. 

Standing alongside the wreckage of his brother Hillel’s mobile home, Yonatan Malachi, an outpost resident for 12 years, says the IDF made an example of Yitzhar for political gain.

"Why did they do it at Yitzhar? They wanted to make some noise. They wanted to show that there are evacuations and that they are still working for peace with the Palestinians."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to West Bank settlers derided as terrorists for turning on their own army
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/0410/West-Bank-settlers-derided-as-terrorists-for-turning-on-their-own-army
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe