Attacks by radical settlers on Israeli army spark debate

Charred tires and boulders pushed to the sides of the road leading to Yitzhar, a West Bank Jewish community near Nablus, were among the signs that residents had made an effort to prevent Israeli soldiers and police from entering the settlement. Patches of grease stains -- remnants of the lubricants that had been poured on the narrow road to induce army jeeps, police sedans and backhoes to lose traction -- were others.

It seems that if not for the influence of the late Lubavitcher rebbe, there might have been more resistance, not just the blockades and grease on the road last Thursday night, according to an account of the events related by Avraham Binyamin, the settlement’s spokesman to JTA during a visit Sunday.

"It is not our way to stand by passively while such a brutal act is perpetrated," said Binyamin, a tall, bespectacled young man with a full beard, sidelocks and a large knitted yarmulke, pointing to the ruins of a home and a chicken coop destroyed under government orders for being built on land said to belong to Palestinians.

"But we honored the wishes of the man who owns the land here and did not attempt to resist the destruction," he added, "at least not in the vicinity of his property."

The man who Binyamin said owns the land is affiliated with a stream of Chabad Chasidism that believes the deceased Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, will return as messiah. In this milieu, it is customary to "ask" the rebbe for his advice by randomly placing a question written on a piece of paper inside a compendium of Schneerson's letters. In this case, according to Binyamin, the "answer" given by the rebbe via one of his old letters was, "Don't fight, concentrate on building."

The willingness of Yitzhar residents to respect a dead rabbi's command -- one they believe came from the grave -- but ignore an order by the government of Israel is instructive. So was Binyamin's caveat that there would be no violence "in the vicinity."

Just hours after the destruction of the house, located on a hilltop adjacent to Yitzhar known as Mitzpeh Yitzhar, arsonists torched a mosque in Burqa, a village about four miles east of Ramallah -- a half-hour drive from Yitzhar. The desecrators spray-painted the words "war" and "Mitzpeh Yitzhar" on the wall of the mosque.

It was just one in a chain of violent vigilante attacks. In the past few years, radical right-wing activists, representing a growing fringe, have pursued a campaign they call "price tag" to avenge perceived injustices meted out against them by the Israeli government, such as the demolition on Mitzpeh Yitzhar.

Mosques have been burned and desecrated with graffiti such as "Muhammad is a pig," Palestinian olive trees have been slashed and burned, and other Palestinian property has been damaged. Vandals also have targeted property belonging to Israeli security forces.

But a red line was crossed in recent days.

Shortly after midnight on Dec. 13, settler radicals -- often referred to as "hilltop youths" because they tend to be young and live on small, isolated outposts -- stormed into an Israeli base in the northern West Bank. They burned tires and vandalized army vehicles, throwing stones and paint at them.

Elsewhere in the northern West Bank, settlers also attacked and lightly wounded an Israeli army commander when they forced open the door of his jeep and hurled a brick at him.

These attacks on the Israel Defense Forces -- one of Israel’s most revered institutions and one to which Israeli families must entrust their sons and daughters -- appalled Israelis and sparked intense debate over how best to combat lawlessness in the West Bank.

Political leaders on the left and center argued that the current government's ideological affinity with the settler movement impaired its ability to crack down on the violence.

Tzipi Livni, Knesset opposition leader and head of the Kadima Party, said in a statement that “this government … is laying fertile ground for these tumors. When Netanyahu says that we are dealing with rioters and not ideological crime, it indicates one of two things -- either he doesn’t understand what is happening here, or he doesn’t want to deal with this extremist ideology because of his natural coalition partners."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other government coalition members have come out strongly and repeatedly against the vigilante violence. Netanyahu said it must be combated with "a heavy hand."

However, the Netanyahu government continues to support settlement growth; just last week, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved a a new neighborhood in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, near Bethlehem.

This week, the whips of all the political parties in the governing coalition except Barak’s Independence faction supported a bill to prevent the demolition of Jewish homes thought to be built on private Palestinian property, like the one destroyed in Mitzpeh Yitzhar.