Who will prevent the pogrom ?

Last update - 01:49 21/03/2005

Haaretz Editorial

Who will prevent the pogrom ?

Last week, Palestinian laborers were attacked by settlers in what the Israel Defense Forces described as an « attempted lynching. » At various locations throughout the West Bank, Jewish hooligans have used guns, iron bars and hammers in an attempt to ignite the territories.

In one case, students of the Yeshuat Mordechai Yeshiva attacked five laborers who had come to work in the settlement of Nahliel with sticks and stones. In a second case, Nawaf Hanani of Nablus was beaten all over his body by armed settlers who forced him to get out of his truck. In a third case, Hebron settlers invaded an Arab house, attacked the residents and destroyed part of the ceiling with hammers. In all of these places, soldiers and policemen were in the vicinity. Granted, some of the assailants were arrested the same day, but they were later allowed to go home.

The lenient attitudes shown by the army and police allow the settlers to conclude that the state either cannot or will not deal with them. If a handful of rioters from Nahliel and Hebron get off scot-free after what the army itself defined as an attempted lynching, the next pogrom is virtually inevitable. The extreme right will stop at nothing to put a spoke in the wheels of disengagement, and the current clashes are merely an omen of what is to come.

Yet faced with the determination of the right-wing battalions scattered throughout the West Bank, which are armed with weapons that the IDF gave them, the defense establishment is dithering over issues that should not be troubling it at all, such as whether it is proper to close Gush Katif to visitors now, or whether the residents should be allowed to celebrate Pesach first. The coming Pesach will be no innocent holiday. Many of those who will visit the Gaza Strip will remain in order to disrupt the evacuation. It is important to remember the seder that Rabbi Moshe Levinger celebrated at the Park Hotel in Hebron 35 years ago : The guests at that seder have not left the city to this day.

Talia Sasson’s report on the illegal outposts, like Yehudit Karp’s report in 1982, is infuriating in its descriptions of the failure to enforce the law against the settlers. Similar statements were made to the state commission of inquiry on the 1994 massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs. Former police commissioner Rafi Peled told that commission that with regard to the settlers, there is only « the semblance of law. » And nothing has changed since then.

Sasson expressed shock over the fact that settlers cut down thousands of Palestinian olive trees under the eyes of watching IDF soldiers and spoke of « the spirit of the commander » in the territories, from which the soldiers understood that they should not intervene, as everything the settlers do is for the sake of Zionism. The unhindered violence of the past few days indicates that this spirit is still active.

The Gaza Strip should be closed to visitors now. Similarly, all those who engage in violence, who push the envelope, who are working day and night to reignite the intifada in order to disrupt the evacuation of settlements by keeping the army busy with other tasks, must be arrested without hesitation. In places with a reputation for hooliganism, such as the settlements and outposts around Nablus, the army must keep an especially sharp eye out. The writing is already on the wall, and it sometimes seems as if the preparations being made by the police and army are less determined and less sophisticated than those being made by the settlers.