Quiet, West Bank Pogrom in Progress
A few days later, settlers assaulted soldiers who were sent to remove them from the outpost – from which, according to suspicions, the rioters had come. Although both incidents are egregious, only one was condemned – the one in which Jews were harmed – and even that condemnation was very weak.
An Israeli soldier stands guard as Israeli settlers tour Hebron in the West Bank on Saturday.Credit: Hazem Bader/AFP
It was only a matter of time before the lawless lords of apartheid in the territories would direct their violence at Israeli soldiers who prevent them from carrying out their wicked schemes against Palestinians.
The Israel Defense Forces – which for years permitted the untamed growth of illegal settlement outposts, did not enforce the law when it came to violence against Palestinians, led the outpost residents to understand that they enjoyed criminal immunity and weakened the already weak law enforcement system – now faces offenders who, emboldened and unrestrained, attack soldiers as well.
When settler violence is directed against soldiers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz suddenly speak out against the violence in the territories. The senior partners in Netanyahu's governing coalition, the representatives in the Knesset of the settlers and of Jewish supremacy, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, saw no need to do so.
On the contrary, Smotrich concentrated his criticism on the army over the shooting and wounding of a 14-year-old boy at the same time, under circumstances that are still unclear. Ben-Gvir chose to remain silent.
Attacks on soldiers by settlers used to draw condemnation from both the left and the right. Today, under the government of Netanyahu and the settlers, even on this issue there is no longer a consensus.
The senior cabinet members want Israeli soldiers to understand that they would be better off not restraining the "hilltop youth." When this is the approach of the highest officials, even someone who is still considering detaining a violent hilltop youth will think twice about it.
Mourners carry the body of Lutfi Be'rat, one of three Palestinians killed by Jewish settlers in the West Bank village of Kafr Malik, Thursday.Credit: Nasser Nasser/AP
All of this guarantees that the eviction orders issued by the chief of the IDF's Central Command will not be enforced and the closed-military-zone orders will be only paper, published for the sake of protocol.
Quiet, let them carry out a pogrom, is the message that Israel's most senior politicians send to the hilltop youth militias in the field. These militias have also led to the expulsion of residents of dozens of Palestinian communities in recent years; one of their goals is to demoralize the Palestinian residents of the West Bank so that they will leave "voluntarily."
The state and the military must understand that the way to ensure that soldiers are not harmed by Jewish rioters is to enforce the law when they harm Palestinians as well. It is also worth trying to understand how the IDF earned a reputation as an army that permits pogroms instead of preventing them, and how an incident in which settlers went on a rampage in a Palestinian village ended with three villagers being shot to death by soldiers.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.