This time they went too far. On Tuesday morning a group of 50 right wing, ultra-nationalist Israeli settlers broke into a West Bank Israeli military base and burned tires, vandalized property, threw rocks at the jeep of a senior officer and spread nails on the road. One Israeli Defense Force officer was lightly wounded. This was not the first attack by Israelis against their military.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government coalition is sustained by some who are sympathetic if not outright supportive of the settler enterprise, called the attack "unprecedented." He further promised to "conquer this evil affliction." Defense Minister Ehud Barak called this "Jewish terror." Opposition leader Tzipi Livni said the attack represented a "struggle over Zionism and over the character of Israel."
Tuesday's incident was the most recent of so-called "price tag" incidents by ultra-nationalist Israeli settlers -- acts of violence and vandalism aimed at Palestinians, the Israeli military, and Israeli left. They are called price tag incidents because they are meant to exact a "price" for acts that undermine the settlement enterprise and are seen as supportive of the Palestinians, and for incidents of Palestinian violence against settlers.
Recent price tag attacks include defacing the Tel Aviv memorial for assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the 1993 Oslo Accords with Yasser Arafat and the PLO, with the words "Price Tag" and "Free Yigal Amir" -- Rabin's right-wing, ultra-nationalist assassin; an arson at a mosque in northern Israel; and a false bomb scare and five counts of vandalism, including spray painting "Death to Arabs" at the Jerusalem headquarters of Peace Now, an Israeli NGO.
The above incidents all took place within Israel's 1967 border. In the West Bank, attacks on Palestinian property were up 57 per cent in the first seven months of 2011.
Israel is at a crossroads. The perpetrators of these despicable acts have declared themselves and will not stop. They have perverted Zionism to suit their extremist beliefs and have been driven towards violence. They have disregarded rabbis' calls to end the attacks. When on Wednesday police tried to arrest suspects linked to the recent incidents, they were attacked by right-wing nationalists. Later that day a Jerusalem mosque was set on fire and had its walls defaced.
This is a concerted effort to undermine the state and assert that in Greater Israel the law of God rules; woe to anyone who stands in His way.
Tzipi Livni was right. This represents a struggle over Zionism and the character of the State of Israel. The stakes are huge.
Israel can respond in one of two ways.
It can continue to treat these as law-and-order incidents, ordering police investigations and arresting the perpetrators. But this is the easy route and does nothing to confront the root of the cause. The messianic zeal that drives these people towards hate and intolerance will never go away. The attacks will continue and Israel will be confronted with an insurrection against democracy, justice and the rule of law.
The second is to go after the root of the problem. Israel, with Netanyahu at the helm, must collectively rise up and once and for all say enough to racist and extremist Zionism and the lawlessness it breeds. Unless the ideology is confronted head-on, it will continue to strike at Israel's foundations and undermine the true Zionism, rooted in hope and idealism, that unites the vast majority of Israelis and Diaspora Jews.
This is much more challenging and heart wrenching. It will require the country to stand up to its own extremists and rogue saboteurs, and definitively take a stand against the concept of a Greater Israel, a dream that can only be built upon racism and occupation. But it is the only way forward.
Remember what's been attacked.
Yitzhak Rabin left behind a legacy of peace, of acceptance and hope for what Israel's future might be. Peace Now is an Israeli organization brave enough to stand up and say when the country has gone astray and to defend the human rights of all.
One would've hoped that attacking such targets, not to mention all the Palestinian property in the West Bank, would've been enough to bring the attention needed to finally stop such acts and the ideology behind them.
Fortunately, Tuesday's attack might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. The genie is out of the bottle. All that remains to be seen is if Israel has the courage and strength to confront its inner demon.
Robert Naiman: Why We Must Sail to Gaza
Jerusalem mosque burnt in 'price tag' attack - Middle East - Al ...
Jerusalem mosque burnt in 'price tag' attack - Worldnews.com
Israel right-wing activists clash with Jerusalem police following price ...
Jerusalem mosque set alight in suspected 'price tag' attack - Haaretz ...
I appreciate that you've chosen the best place to begin, a news item about a physical attack carried out by people widely regarded as wingnuts. but it's worth going a little further up the chain of authority.
At about the same time that the IDF base was being attacked by "outpost" settlers, Israel's Minister of Education was addressing the press about field trips for Israeli kids. It's really tricky to separate what Gideon Sa'ar said about Israel's right to control all of the territory between the Med and the Jordan River, from what the settlers have to say on the same subject. Gideon Sa'ar is not an "extremist" or "rogue saboteur" in the language of the press. He does wear a tie, and the organization he serves owns some heavy equipment. But that's the only difference I can see between Sa'ar and the outpost folks. His remarks are here:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-education-minister-palestinian-state-in-west-bank-dangerous-move-1.401223
The press often attaches ideas to people of whom we are emotionally suspicious. I think it's more useful to follow the idea to its root where, more often than not, you'll find a man with an oak desk.
Diaries of Theodor Herzl (the founder of Zionism) not only confirm that his objective was the establishment of a "Jewish state" in Palestine, but that it would be an expansionist state. In the year of his death he described its borders as being "...in the north the mountains facing Cappadocia [Turkey], in the south, the Suez Canal [Egypt] in the east, the Euphrates [Iraq]." (Theodor Herzl, The Complete Diaries).
As early as 1882, Zionists in Palestine were anticipating armed conflict: "The final purposes...are to take possession in due course of Palestine and to restore the Jews...political independence. Furthermore, it will be necessary to teach the young and the future generations the use of arms." (David Vital, Origins of Zionism).
In 1905, leading Zionist Israel Zangwill declared that Palestinians "should be transplanted" in Arab countries and In 1920, he proposed in The Voice of Jerusalem, that there should be an "'Arab exodus'...based on 'race redistribution'...."
In 1918, Polish born David Ben-Gurion (nee, David Gruen) described the future borders of the Jewish state as: "to the north, the Litani River; to the northeast, the Wadi'Owja, twenty miles south of Damascus; the southern border will be mobile and pushed into the Sinai at least up to Wadi al-`Arish; and to the east, the Syrian Desert, including the furthest edge of Transjordan." (Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs).
In short - Israel: 63 years of trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.
The Zionist project in Palestine was based on the false assumption that the native Palestinians would soon give up and accept their fate as a dispossessed, brutalized, occupied and oppressed people. Big mistake. Time, demographics, international economics and the thrust of 21st century geopolitics are with the Palestinians. With each passing day Israel is increasingly and justifiably viewed around the world, including the US and the Jewish diaspora, as a pariah state, a serial violator of international human rights law. At the same time, Zionist mythology regarding the founding of Israel is crumbling. It could only be thus.