Violence and its threats, Friday, October 28, 2005

The president of Iran continued his rhetorical assault on Israel, rejecting the international condemnations of his statement earlier this week that the ‘Jews state should be erased from the map’ and that is what the Palestinian military resistance to Israel aims to do. Tens of thousands of Iranians were said to be marching shouting slogans against Israel and America.

The Iranian mania, as it is presented here, led the news but overnight, at least three Palestinian civilians were killed in an air force attack against two local Islamic Jihad bosses in Gaza. The Hamas and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades joined Islamic Jihad declarations that the Israelis, ‘had opened the gates of hell.’ But that was old news for Israelis by the noon news, which made no mention of the strange arithmetic of victims of the Israel Air Force attack.

Instead, Israel Radio focused on the violence that broke out when IDF troops tried to evacuate a new wildcat outpost being put up by ‘Hilltop Youth’ this week. The fist-fighting between settlers and soldiers, as well as all-out physical assaults by the settler youth on the commanding officers prompted ‘condemnation’ but no apologies from the Yesha Council.

Israel Radio’s legal commentator Moshe Negbi reminded listeners that while the law states anyone convicted of assaulting an Israeli soldier during their mission is subject to 20 years in jail, no settlers who fought soldiers have ever spent more than 20 days in jail. Ever, he repeated.

He also pointed out that today’s media carries a tenth anniversary of the Rabin assassination interview with Yigal Amir’s family arguing that it was Rabin who was the criminal and ten years are enough of a punishment. Trouble is, there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Israelis who believe that.

A conversation with an officer who was assaulted by what he called 14-18 year olds, but says he ‘supports’ the settlement movement and expects the settlements to grow, concluded with an Israel Radio reporter pointing out that ‘the IDF has not changed its diskette’ with regard to how it treats the settlers; after all, the IDF’s role is to protect them.

According to Haaretz today, Mofaz has ordered the removal of 15 settler families squatting in buildings they grabbed away from Arabs in the old Hebron market. But there are standing orders to remove various settlers from various places, and so far, the army in the West Bank continues to not only protect Jews from terror but protects Jews who terrorize their Arab neighbors. Thus, in Hebron, the entire leadership of Kach, which openly advocates - and practices when possible - the physical removal of all Arabs in the Land of Israel lives under the protection of the army. The army allows Palestinian policemen to operate keeping public order in the Palestinian-controlled rest of Hebron but the IDF essentially controls the city by examining individually anyone who leaves or enters it.

That includes anti-war Israeli activists, 50 of whom did manage to evade those controls, which usually keep them out of Hebron, for fear of violence between them and the settlers. Indeed, the settlers were quickly outnumbered by settlers, requiring the army’s intervention. It dutifully removed the 50 protestors.

Deputy Defense Minister Ze’ev Boim, awaiting appointment as a full-fledged minister next week – if Ariel Sharon can find a Knesset majority for adding more ministers to his already bloated government, something that might seem likely but nonetheless remains in doubt because of ‘the rebels’ – appeared on Israel Radio to say that the Palestinians have to understand that ‘the rules of the game changed once we left Gaza behind.’

He bemoaned the fact that the Palestinians are not fulfilling their obligations to prevent terrorism, as they promised they would ‘not only to us, but to the international community. Boim said ‘we still have restraints on us,’ when asked about harm to civilians in Gaza during counter-terror operations, ‘but they have to realize the rules have changed. They have to take responsibility for themselves and until they do we will do what must be done.’

So the Jewish new year begins, with the security forces on full alert in case of attacks from all the armed Palestinian factions not under Palestinian Authority control – and the Jerusalem Police Chief Ilan Franco saying there was no need to intervene in the freedom of worship at the Temple Mount. Sharon is said to be insisting that he won’t talk with Abbas as long as the PA doesn’t take action against the armed militias, the irregulars, or even the gangsters of south Gaza. But Sharon looked and sounded sincere, like a disappointed new convert to ‘the political process,’ as he explains at a p[hoto-op that he exploited with the Russian foreign minister, that he regrets Abbas is unable to do what he says should be done.

Defense Minister Mofaz meanwhile is telling Yedioth Ahronoth that he reckons this generation of Palestinians are not capable of making peace and he’ll hope the next generation is – it was doubtful he meant Marwan Barghouti, the Fateh leader from the West Bank jailed for life in Israel as a convicted orchestrator of murders and viewed as a Mandela by many Palestinians.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom meanwhile announces he’s started a campaign to get the Iranians thrown out of the UN, and strikes a hawkish pose regarding the Palestinians. And in the Western Negev, less than a dozen hours after the lethal IAF strike in Jabalya, and despite all the vows that Israeli force will put an end to the violence, two Qassams landed during the course of the morning, landing in empty fields, causing no damage or injury, but setting off a slight anic in Sderot when alarms went off. There are reports, by the way, that the Likud mayor of Sderot, Eli Moyal, is Shalom’s choice as the next ambassador to France.

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