Pogroms & vigilantism

A "pogrom" is vigilante violence - Saturday's settler rampage was nothing of the kind.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
yitzhar 224.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
yitzhar 224.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
This much can be said for the radical settlers who seem to dominate Yitzhar - they know how to turn the rest of Israel against them. In the latest incident, early Saturday, a Palestinian Arab bent on murder infiltrated Shalhevet Yam, a satellite of Yitzhar near Nablus. He broke into what turned out to be an empty caravan - the family was away for Shabbat - so he torched it. He tried another home, but the woman there managed to close the shutters just in time. The neighboring Shatman family, smelling smoke, reportedly sent nine-year-old Tuvia to sound the alarm. Encountering the boy, the terrorist stabbed him five times. Tuvia was able to wrench the knife away from his attacker; who then picked up the boy, threw him toward a ravine and ran off in the direction of an Arab village. The young hero was taken to Schneider Medical Center in Petah Tikva, where he received some 20 stitches. Meanwhile, soldiers tried to secure the area and began searching for the infiltrator. Had the incident ended at this point or, better, with the capture of the terrorist, media coverage would have been minimal. "Palestinian attacks settler" is hardly news. Nor would the media have taken much notice of the stones hurled over the weekend at Israeli motorists near the entrance to Tekoa, south of Bethlehem, since they caused only "light" injuries. The provocations did not go unanswered in either incident. In Tekoa, a law-abiding community with a history of seeking coexistence - a place, too, where Arab violence has claimed precious lives - residents did the right thing: They called authorities. Soldiers were met with a hail of rocks. And had the attackers managed to kill a despised "settler," or soldier, most local Palestinians wouldn't have been wringing their hands and asking, "How could our children do such a thing?" Some might even have been handing out sweets. In the event, one of the rioting Arab teenagers was mortally wounded. Reacting to the Shatman stabbing, Yitzhar settlers took the law into their own hands, marching on nearby Asira el-Kibliyeh. They threw stones and fired their weapons, wounding at least eight Palestinians. The IDF chased after the Yitzhar men, earning the disdain of both Arab villagers and Jewish settlers. Up and down Judea and Samaria, there is bad blood between radical settlers and the IDF. Though most Israelis who live beyond the Green Line are law-abiding, an increasingly growing minority is anything but. They have violently attacked reservists, abused them verbally and destroyed IDF equipment. The radicals' message: Don't even think about dismantling an unauthorized outpost - much less an actual settlement - because the relative restraint we showed during disengagement in 2005 will not be repeated. We understand that these settlers feel under siege. The murders of Gilad Zar and Harel Bin-Nun in the second intifada have not been forgotten. We insist, however, that those who go out on vigilante raids against Arabs, or brawl with IDF soldiers are an affront to Zionism. Such behavior is inexcusable - indeed, contemptible. AFTER 2,000 years, legitimate Jewish authority rests only with the state - imperfect, but the only one we have. Fueled by a sense of political and religious self-righteousness, settler radicals are descending a slippery slope in which nothing - not even the preservation of the Third Commonwealth - is more important than retaining Greater Israel. Israelis understand that the West Bank is the cradle of Jewish civilization and generally appreciate its strategic significance. There is far less consensus as regards the Kadima government's effort, Arab violence notwithstanding, to secure the future of the Jewish state by offering the Palestinians a state of their own in most of that territory. It is legitimate to challenge government policy as folly, within the parameters of democracy. To do so in any other way is treason. AND FINALLY: A small minority of settlers behaving badly does not a pogrom make. In telling the cabinet on Sunday that "There will be no pogroms against non-Jewish residents in the State of Israel," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert committed a grave injustice to Jewish history. Mr. Prime Minister: A "pogrom" is vigilante violence - inspired, instigated and enabled by the authorities. Clearly, Saturday's settler rampage was nothing of the kind.