IDF fears settlers may attack Palestinians in response to freeze

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Anshel Pfeffer, Chaim Levinson, and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: Israel settlement freeze

Israel Defense Forces officers in the West Bank have expressed concerned that settlers may escalate their acts of opposition to the freeze on settlement construction by targeting the Palestinian population.

In recent days, inspectors delivering freeze orders to the settlements have been met with acts of violence, yet the troops from the Judea and Samaria Division and the Central Command - who are responsible for their safety - are nowhere to be found. Instead, the brunt of the security work has been carried out by police and Border Police troops.

At this stage, the IDF is keen to keep a low profile and even the IDF spokesman's office has left the field to their colleagues from the police and the Civil Administration.

The army went as far as to downplay a visit by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to the Division Headquarters, during which time he spoke about necessary preparations to enforce the temporary ban on settlement construction.

Troops from the regional brigades in the West Bank have intervened in only a few cases involving unruly settlers. A noteworthy instance involved the chief of security of Beit Aryeh, whose salary and vehicle are paid for by the IDF. Once the IDF learned that he had used the vehicle to block the path of the construction inspectors, the commander of the regional brigade, with the backing of GOC Central Command, ordered the vehicle to be confiscated.

"Even though we will carry out every order we are given, the current situation suits us," an officer serving in the West Bank told Haaretz. "For many soldiers is a difficult subject, and at the end of the day it's not really the task for which we have been prepared." ...

read on...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1132752.html

[ProgressiveMuslim]

1. Hmm... when IDF fears Palestinian attack, Palestinians are shuttered in their homes.

Of course, that's to protect Israeli life.
What measures will be taken to protect Palestinians from the rampaging settlers? Will a single settler have his or her movement curtailed?

[oberliner]

2. Israeli police arrest settler leader in West Bank

JERUSALEM — Israeli settlers say police have arrested the mayor of a West Bank Jewish community after settlers blocked security from enforcing a construction freeze.

Settler spokesman Yishai Hollender say police apprehended Avi Naim for disrupting a police officer in the line of duty.

He said Naim and a group of settlers blocked the entrance to their Beit Arieh settlement in the central West Bank on Wednesday when troops arrived to hand out orders to cease construction at the site.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNCndRPRq3gD9CB47MG3

[ProgressiveMuslim]

5. I said "single settler" sarcastically. I should have guessed it would be a single settler. nt

[oberliner]

6. Israel Arrests Settlers Fighting Freeze

EFRAT, West Bank — The Israeli police made their first arrests on Wednesday as part of the state’s effort to enforce a temporary construction freeze in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, briefly detaining the mayor of a settler council and at least two Jewish protesters. Both sides are trying hard to show how determined they are — the state in enforcing the moratorium, and the settlers in thwarting the state’s plans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/world/middleeast/03mideast.html

[LeftishBrit]

3. A big worry

The settlers have been allowed to get out of hand, and I'm glad that there is some attempt to crack down on them - whether enough, we shall see.

'settlers may escalate their acts of opposition to the freeze on settlement construction by targeting the Palestinian population.'

Otherwise known as terrorism.

[Scurrilous]

4. Meet Daniel Pinner - an extremist West Bank settler

<snip>

"Daniel Pinner, whose monologue follows, lives in the settlement of Kfar Tapuah, which was founded in 1978 by a core group of members of Moshav Bareket belonging to the Hapoel Hamizrachi movement and is defined as a "religious communal" settlement. In 1990 Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane (the son of Meir Kahane, founder of the extreme right-wing Kach party, which was banned in 1994) moved there; he was murdered, together with his wife Talia in 2001, in a shooting on a highway south of the settlement of Ofra. Following the younger Kahane, others identified with the Kach movement moved to Tapuah. He headed a yeshiva there, and the entire settlement became known for its extremism.

In recent years, as a result of an expansion of the settlement, it is less identified with Kach, and at present it has mostly young families. The rabbi of the settlement, Rabbi Shmuel Cohen, is identified with the Shas movement.

Pinner says that he does not in fact officially represent the settlement in which he lives or the settlement movement. Some of his ideas have few supporters. He is not the leader of a community or an outpost. He is known on the fringes of the right, mainly to veteran activists. It is doubtful whether the youngsters who occasionally sing his song about Yitzhak Rabin (in which every stanza ends with the words: "He went to hell") even know who he is.

But there are dozens, if not hundreds more like Pinner, who represent only themselves; who believe in an ideology that is not the product of any yeshiva or any specific book. In that sense, his good friend, the suspected Jewish terrorist Yaakov Teitel, resembles him. Teitel is also not the product of an organized ideological or philosophical system, but picked up his ideas and his caprices here and there along the way.

Pinner was interviewed at his home a few weeks ago."

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