JTA Issues Special Report on Jewish Extremism

Martine Kaplan — June 25, 2009 – 4:35 pm | Israel Comments (0) Add a comment

JTA issued an in-depth special report by Dina Kraft on Jewish Extremism in West Bank settlements. The three articles in the report are worth reading:

”Some Jewish settlers turning against Israel” outlines the trend towards extremism and the mentality of young extremists.

“Radical settlers rampage against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, sometimes hiding their faces behind black ski masks or scarves. Confident they are following the word of God, they call for a Torah-based theocracy that they say will one day triumph over the State of Israel.

Unlike most settlers, these youths mostly eschew serving in the Israel Defense Forces, which they consider criminal for its evacuation of Jews from Gaza in 2005. Mostly second-generation settlers whose fathers had considered IDF service an automatic rite of passage, these radicals have largely turned against a state they view as having betrayed its core principles.”

”The view from a West Bank hilltop” describes life in Havat Gilad, an illegal settlement outpost in the West Bank that the government plans to evacuate.

“The army evacuated them once; they promptly returned. The outpost was built as an act of revenge, Zar said, for the shooting death of his brother, Gilad, on a nearby road in May 2001. His brother had been the head of security for Karnei Shomron, a West Bank settlement where the brothers grew up.

There is a rustic, almost Old West feeling to the outpost. Overlooking a Palestinian village, Havat Gilad is accessible only by a dirt path off the main road. At the entrance, a wooden Star of David built into a pair of wooden posts welcomes visitors. One of the posts bears a faded orange ribbon left over from the campaign in 2005 against Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.”

”Israel wrestles with settler challenge” discusses the issues the Israel government faces when trying to disband settlements, as well as the challenges in trying to police both settlement funding and lawlessness.

”“We cannot underestimate the threat posed by vigilante extremism,” [Prime Minister’s Spokesman Mark] Regev said. “We lost a prime minister to a bullet fired by an extremist Jew, and the threat has not subsided.”

Most mainstream settler leaders take pains to distance themselves from radicalism. They say young violent settlers, known as hilltop youth, are beyond their control.”

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