Haaretz reports on the expansion of settler violence to the Israel Defence Forces:
In September settlers broke into Binyamin Brigade headquarters and ran riot there. But the scale of the latest incidents proves that we are no longer talking about a handful of "wild weeds" on the margins of the settler community.
And the Israel Defense Forces, as is its wont, stood idly by: Not one of the dozens of people who participated in Monday's rampage was arrested. That's how the army always behaves when it comes to settlers. The IDF, the police and the Shin Bet security service stand idly by when settlers rampage against Palestinians, torching mosques, groves, cars and houses. Now they stand idly by even when the targets are IDF bases and commanders.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to condemn what happened yesterday and to convene consultations. But it is a belated and hypocritical response. He and the heads of the military establishment know full that settlers routinely run riot in the West Bank with impunity. Those who did nothing when mosques were torched are now reaping attacks on the army. And those who stay silent now will reap attacks on Jews within Israel.
The government must immediately authorize a forceful and determined operation to stop Jewish terror in the West Bank. It must break the armed militias and impose law and order. For it is not the settlers alone who bear responsibility for the lawlessness: The prime minister and the heads of the military establishment are also responsible.
Of course, as the editorial notes, the settlers have been doing this kind of thing to the Palestinians for years. So, why can't the government do anything about it? Andrew Sullivan has it right:
We have an axis not between Washington and Jerusalem as a whole, but between US Christianists and Jewish fundamentalists intent on claiming for ever the Biblical lands of Judea and Samaria. They both want permanent annexation and a war on Iran. They control the government in Israel and the major opposition party in the United States. And the two likeliest Republican nominees are far more supportive of a foreign prime minister than their own president.
And, as Sullivan goes on to note, the bondage of Likud and the Republican party to the most right-wing of Israeli pro-settler nutbaggery is not becauase of American Jews, but because of American Christian fundamentalists allied with Israeli Jewish fundamentalists, both of whom believe that Israel has a divine mandate to engage in the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. Both the Republicans and Likud have allowed their hands to be tied by these dangerous ideologues. They've sown the wind, and now they're reaping the whirlwind.
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