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Sunday, September 14, 2008

Like ships passing in the night...

I can't think of a better way to put it when two people unknowingly exchange points of view.

My friend Imshin has a very thoughtful post up about the terrorist attack on an Israeli 'settlement' this past weekend (in which a home was burned and a child stabbed), and of the subsequent retaliatory attack by some settlers on the neighboring Arab community.

Go read it.  I'll wait.

Somewhere in the night, Imshin and I seem to have exchanged places.

You see, Imshin is a secular Tel Avivi who is angry at the Israeli media for downplaying the initial attack on the settlement and focusing entirely on the retaliatory 'rampage' by the settlers (as if their violent behavior occurred in a vacuum).

I, on the other hand, am a religious 'settler' who is angry at the settlers who decided to take the law into their own hands and attack the Arab village.  I am especially appalled that they fired guns (albeit into the air and into water tanks on the roofs of the houses), in addition to roughing up some Arabs, trashing some cars and breaking windows.

Make no mistake, the town's anti-terror squad should have been called out and defensive perimeter set up to ward off further Arab attacks.  But the IDF is the only force legally allowed to pursue anyone beyond the boundaries of the town.  Full Stop.  Once that rule is set aside anyone can attack anyone with or without just cause!

What's odd is that Imshin and I are probably in perfect agreement with the other's feelings overall.  We are just more angry (as if relativity in anger is somehow relevant) about the aspect of the incident and subsequent coverage that got under our respective skin.

Imshin is tired of the media's attempts to manipulate public feelings against settlers.... even in the face of violence and impossible provocation.   I'm tired of settlers being far more dangerous to their own interests than the Arabs could be on their 'best' day.

Yes, I feel it is reprehensible that the Israeli media talks only about the evil settler violence and typically waits several paragraphs before casually mentioning (and downplaying) whatever attack precipitated the settler response.  But I am horrified that the settlers acted like, well, a bunch of Arabs (i.e. allowing emotion and violent impulses to override logic and the rule of law).

I can't think of a sufficiently dire punishment for journalists who attempt to sway public opinion with deliberate distortion of the truth.  Sadly, there likely is no adequate punishment, nor the means of imposing one if it existed.

But IMHO anyone who uses a gun for anarchy... to terrorize, destroy property or instill fear instead of as a last resort to save a human life... deserves to lose his/her gun (and the right to carry it).  Anyone who puts themselves in the place of the police and/or army is not deserving of protection from either of those forces.

I agree with Imshin when she vents at the media's willingness to relinquish the moral high ground in any and every case where Jews come into conflict with Arabs.  But I am angrier at the victims in this scenario - the settlers - for willingly surrendering their own moral high ground and handing the media an easy club with which to bludgeon them (us).

Posted by David Bogner on September 14, 2008 | Permalink

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But the IDF is the only force legally allowed to pursue anyone beyond the boundaries of the town.
I agree, whatever the initial attack.

Posted by: Ilana-Davita | Sep 14, 2008 4:35:44 PM

But the IDF is the only force legally allowed to pursue anyone beyond the boundaries of the town.

What happens when the IDF stops doing its job?

What happens when, for political purposes, the settlers/yishuvim become "hefker"?

Today, very little is done to protect the yishuvim. How bad does it have to get, before we understand why settlers are taking matters into their own hands.

What has to happen before we accept their right to defend themselves?

I don't have answers yet.

My initial reaction was actually the same as yours.

I was shocked today, to hear someone justifying the actions of the settlers (she did not know my politics, though my orange bracelet might be a "giveaway")

I followed your link, and read imshin's post. I don't know.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that this is not a black and white issue.

Posted by: Rivka with a capital A | Sep 14, 2008 4:43:27 PM

Rivka with a capital A ... I never said they didn't have the right to defend themselves. I do say that there is no excuse for the kind of thing we saw yesterday. It is lawlessness and works against everything the settler movement has worked so hard to establish. Quite simply, they may not take the offensive outside their own borders. That is why we have an army... and it is the government's sole prerogative when and how to use the IDF. As to your first question, the answer is 'circle the wagons'. Anarchy is not a solution. If the yeshuvim really feel they are being abandoned (by accident or design) it is up to them to get better support within the government, make a decision to stay and defend themselves (defensive) or pack up and leave. Taking up an offensive position is not an option allowed by law. If the settlers don't want to live by the law, they can return all those M-16s the army gave them for defensive purposes.

Posted by: treppenwitz | Sep 14, 2008 4:54:43 PM

From what I understand there is a very long history of attacks and provocations against Itzahar from that village, with the army powerless to do anything about it. This has been going on for years.

What the army is capable and willing to do to protect the residents is clearly not enough, and this incident was the straw that broke the camel's back. Sadly, the army's impotence leaves open only the option of this sort of retribution.

You are concerned about how the settlers look in the media, while the residents of Itzahar are concerned about having their children murdered in terror attacks.

The question is whether they placed the law into their hands out of choice or out of necessity. I wouldn't rush to judgment before I knew enough facts to answer that question.

Posted by: ashoichet | Sep 14, 2008 8:22:08 PM

make a decision to stay and defend themselves (defensive)

An argument could be made that they did take a defensive action. That type of retaliation was used (effectively) by the army in the 19050's, after an rise in attacks on settlements (in those days, "settlements" were still "good").

It is important to recognize the manipulation of the government in all this.

1. The Arabs attack the settlers' property.
2. The army/police do...nothing.
3. The Arabs attack the settler's, but no one is killed.
4. The army/police do... nothing.

Now, the settlers have a choice.
A. Wait until the Arabs kill someone. Then the army will do some minor action.
or
B. Defend themselves. And receive widespread criticism (even from "right-wingers."

The message seems to be clear: The settlers have no rights to defend themselves if the army won't do it.

Again, I ask the question: At what point would YOU agree that the settlers have a right to take action against their attackers??

Did you read Jameel's post about this?

Posted by: Rivka with a capital A | Sep 14, 2008 8:40:01 PM

I'm lost(from the comments).

Is the security apparatus to deal with Arab terrorists the problem here , or is it irresponsible response to a terror attack and media bias?

If the Arab terrorist was caught in action, he’d have been killed, right? Whether or not the IDF or media was present.

Posted by: Rami | Sep 14, 2008 9:41:40 PM

I'm afraid its a no-win situation. If you don't fight back, you are encouraging the Arabs. If you do, you are playing into thae hands of the leftist press.
Daven for Moshiach (no, I'm not chabad) because I see no other option helping very fast....

Posted by: Rickismom | Sep 15, 2008 1:59:59 AM

Let's not make this a left-right issue. Try this on for size: An Arab infiltrating a settlement is not news. Not because the journalists orthe society does not care, but because it is too common. Israeli civilian retaliation is news, precisely because it is not the norm. In some ways, this is even a sadder take on the situation.

Posted by: jordan Hirsch | Sep 15, 2008 6:05:32 AM

ashoichet... Yes, I am concerned with the way the settlers appear in the media. That perception will be crucial when and if a referendum is ever brought before the nation to decide what will be done with the territories over the green line. So yes, we need to be very aware of the way we are being portrayed in the press. It's one thing when the media lies about us... but when they are right (even in part) we can't very well complain. As to whether or not the army is doing a sufficient job of protecting the yeshuvim, that goes back to what I said. We may not cross the line between vigorously protecting ourselves (i.e. kitot konenut in the yeshuvim) and going out and exacting blind retribution (anarchy/vigilanteeism). We have a government that sets and carries out policy. To reject that is the end of us all... just read your Jewish history.

Rivka with a capital A... I have never said that retribution and retaliatory raids are not effective. IN fact I have been a strong proponent of massive and disproportionate responses to every attack. But by the government forces, not individuals acting outside the law. I say yes to defending themselves (including the use of deadly force and maybe even summarily executing a terrorist found within the yeshuv. But outside the boundaries of the town is the sole province of the government (i.e. the army and or police) to act.

Rami ... Let's put it this way. If a terrorist were to break into my town and I caught him/her trying to kill people, there would be no need of a trial.

Rickismom... I never said don't fight back. I said that civilians acting on their own may not take the fight to random Arabs. There is no proof of where the attacker is from (although it is reasonable to assume he was from that village), and rampaging through the village does little more than take away the moral high ground from the settlers.

jordan Hirsch... In this it is very much a right left issue. The left in Israel and the left-leaning media have made a conscious decision to ignore attacks on settlers (as if to say 'they have it coming to them). Don't agree? Well, think about what would happen if an Arab terrorist were to burn a home in Tel Aviv or Herzlia and try to kill a child there. Would it be front page news? Would the response (public and official) be different?

Posted by: treppenwitz | Sep 15, 2008 9:17:21 AM

I agree with you, David. It is either a state under the rule of law with the monopoly on legitimate force –or it is anarchy, with all its consequences. There is no in-between.

To terrorise random people is no act of self-defence. It is mob law. "But that is where he came from" and "The other side does it too" cannot change that. "But the state fails to react appropriately" does neither. There are legal ways to change the government, and if that fails, well – that is democracy.

(p.s.: No, I have never been physically attacked for my religion or ethnicity, so I cannot say how I would react in reality. However, if I should choose mob law, I would be wrong and hopefully be persecuted by the right law.)

Posted by: reader | Sep 15, 2008 11:22:07 AM

1) David - you have not answered the central point.

Which is the extreme limitation (in this situation) of being a good boy Scout and leaving defense to the official bodies responsible for it.

When the "official bodies" are not living up to their responsibilities - for cynical, manipulative, political reasons, as other posters have pointed out - being a good boy becomes being a patsy at some point.

2) Believe it or not - what the left-wing press writes about settlers does not correspond 1-to-1 with "public opinion". It corresponds to manufactured public opinion.

Remember your recent posts about Sarah Palin? How's the media attack on her playing out?

Poll after poll shows that Israelis aren't buying the media's line.

Same here in Israel. After over a year of Sderot coverage - capping several years in which the failure of Oslo could not be obscured or explained away by the media - most Israelis have caught on. They want pre-emption and deterrent response.

A large segment of Israelis see the settlers as a last bastion of bravery and sanity. Criticism by the effete left-wing media isn't necessarily a bad thing for our image in this context.

Posted by: Ben-David | Sep 15, 2008 11:25:51 AM

Trep -- I understand what you are saying. But I am asking a different question. IF the government does not protect them, THEN is there a point at which even you would agree that settlers have a right to take larger actions to defend themselves?

OR, if the government has abandoned them, and it is no longer safe for them to stay there, are you saying that they have no choice but to leave or be killed?

Here's what I think:
1. the government should protect them
2. if the government is protecting them, then they should not take any independent actions
3. if the government is NOT protecting them, then they have a right/obligation to protect themselves
AND
4. WE have an obligation to protest the government for not doing their job.

Unfortunately, since we know how seriously the government takes our protests, we have to ask ourselves, how much do people have to suffer before they are justified in protecting their property and their lives.

Posted by: Rivka with a capital A | Sep 15, 2008 11:35:22 AM

reader... Thank you. You said in two paragraphs what it took me 800 words to say. :-)

Ben-David... As usual we are at odds... not because I disagree with your anger but because you fail to support your case 1. While I agree that there may be cynical reasons behind what the government will and will not allow the IDF to do in defense of the settlers, you have no proof that this is the case. But even if you brought proof, that is not an excuse to take the offensive outside of the yeshuvim. That is anarchy and will end the way anarchy always has in our history; with an outside party ruling over our land and the Jews in exile. 2. While there is no 1 -to -1 relationship between what the press says and what the public believes/feels... it has been demonstrated that the media has the ability to sway large and influential segments of the public (see the disengagement from Gaza). The right and left are not budging from their positions... but there are a huge number of 'centrist' (closer to the middle) Israelis who are disillusioned by partisan politics and will likely vote for whatever they are feeling at the moment when the referendum comes up for a vote. Do you really want to risk having them hear that settlers are acting like animals just before such a vote comes up?

Rivka with a capital A... I did answer exactly that question. Within the yeshuvim the settlers already have the right to act with complete freedom to protect themselves. But outside the yeshuvim they may not. That is more freedom of action than any Tel Avivi has at present. Someone in a typical Israeli city may act only when their home is invaded or when they personally are threatened... while settlers may act anywhere within their communities with deadly force using weapons provided to them by the IDF. When the IDF abandons the settlers (i.e. when they withdraw from Judea and Samaria), then and only then may remaining Jews (provided they are allowed to remain) act autonomously. When you are using the vague term 'protecting themselves' I say that they already have the legal right to do this. But if you are using that phrase to mean 'go to the neighboring Arab village and put the fear of Jews into the enemy', then, no, they do no (and should not) have that right.

Posted by: treppenwitz | Sep 15, 2008 11:50:49 AM

The residents of Bat Ayin in Gush Etzion used to be called "Meshugaei Bat Ayin" - the Bat Ayin Crazies.

It's not because they don't have a fence around their town.

Years ago Arabs used to try to infiltrate their unfenced village. At some point the Bat Ayin residents took extreme action against the infiltrators and the neighboring villages they came from.

The infiltrations stopped for many years, as the neighboring Arabs were terrified of these crazy people.

It is only recently that the Arabs have forgotten the Bat Ayin lesson and have started to try to infiltrate that town again.

Posted by: JoeSettler | Sep 15, 2008 12:24:34 PM

so JoeSettler actually really truly wants us to see him that way? So be it.

I'm just happy that I did my IDF service before the intifada, and most of my reserve duty, the Arabs I saw were mostly Syrians and Lebanese.

Posted by: asher | Sep 15, 2008 1:23:18 PM

It was the Arabs that called them crazy, and they were so scared of them that they stopped all the terrorist attacks and thievery attempts against that settlement because afterwords they fully expected a disproportional retaliation for just stepping within the town's boundaries without permission.

So yes, I quite happy with the Arabs calling us crazy if it means they are too afraid to stab little children.

Posted by: JoeSettler | Sep 15, 2008 2:03:13 PM

JoeSettler... there are ways to let the Arabs think we're crazy without making the Israeli public think so as well. I say that when an Arab terrorist is caught and killed within a yeshuv, the settlers should hold the body for ransom. And when it is finally returned, it should be liberally coated in pig fat and missing its private parts. But Israelis may not take the role of the IDF into their own hands and invade a neighboring village no matter what the provocation.

Asher... I hate to say it, but I actually agree with some of what you said (for a change)... although I don't see what it matters if the Arabs are Syrian, Lebanese or 'Palestinian'. Ethnically and culturally they are far more closely related than you and I.

Joe Setter... Again, there are ways to make them afraid to endanger Jews that don't require anarchy. See my comment to you above.

Posted by: treppenwitz | Sep 15, 2008 2:21:40 PM

No one has said anything about the police?

From what-I-read-in-the-papers, for what's that worth, the IDF says it DID take action and was already in the Arab village seeking the stabber when the settlers arrived -- and the IDF claims it was the Border Police's job to stop them. The Border Police apparently were called to the scene, but state that the settlers were "already in the Arab village" and since the BP can't go into the village itself without IDF permission, there was no action the BP could legally take. Apart from the obvious buck-passing here, it DOES appear that there is an apparatus for protecting Jewish and Arab villagers alike but somehow the Failure To Communicate between the two armed forces charged with this protection, IDF and BP, worsened an already awful situation.

Jews should protect themselves. If an Arab comes into my neighborhood burning, looting, stabbing and killing, he's dead meat. OTOH, we shouldn't act like Arabs and run vigilante-like into the nearest village to terrorize everyone........"Revenge is a dish best eaten cold."

Wait. In time, we'll know the stabber and then appropriate action can be taken.

Posted by: aliyah06 | Sep 15, 2008 3:20:30 PM

thinking it over (a case of Treppenwitz) JoeSettler did a public-disservice-announcement i.e did his public a disservice.

Actually we have a lot of places to agree, pity that politics (the stuuf that passes for it over here) and religion are not among them.
Movies, music, history (not sports) yes.

Posted by: asher | Sep 15, 2008 3:47:01 PM

It's very easy to judge from afar off, and even Gush Ezion can be far off when it comes to a place like Izahar. As I said, your primary concern is media coverage, their primary concern is survival. We should be discussing how to prevent these things from happening instead of arguing about on whom to pin the blame.

I don't think one has to dwell on ancient history to understand that "circling the wagons" isn't a solution to stopping terrorism from your neighbors. The IDF understood this long ago. I guess that you're saying that if the residents' only option is to go on the offensive and punish neighboring villages for harboring terrorists then it's time for them to pack up and leave. It's a valid position, one that I do not agree with.

I agree with you that ideally these things shouldn't happen. In an ideal situation the army would do it's job and the settlers wouldn't overstep the boundaries of the law. But the reality isn't ideal, and as Joe Settler pointed out, and as anyone who ever served in a combat unit in Judea and Samaria knows, sometimes the only methods that effectively deal with terrorism don't exactly fall within the law.

Posted by: aschoichet | Sep 15, 2008 4:14:59 PM

By the way...

That is anarchy and will end the way anarchy always has in our history; with an outside party ruling over our land and the Jews in exile.

Drawing parallels between the way the modern world works and ancient history is a futile business, in my opinion. But I'll bite.

Are you hinting at the conquest of Erez Israel by Pompey in 63 BCE? That was a civil war between two brothers competing for power, and isn't really relevant. If you're referring to the anarchy during the Great Revolt, the Romans ruled before and after. One can argue that anarchy doomed the revolt, but at no time did anarchy cause the Jewish state to lose it's independence. On the contrary, the beginning of the Hasmonean state is rooted in anarchy, revolt and refusal to abide by the law of the land. And reading the sources between the lines you can always spot the factions that were against the anarchy of the Maccabees (like the Hasidim in Maccabees 1 and the Dead Sea sect). And no, they were not fighting only the Greeks. They were fighting also fellow Jews (the Hellenizers -- mityavnim) who set the rules together with their Syrian overlords.

Posted by: aschoichet | Sep 15, 2008 4:30:37 PM

The point is: if the Army & other security elements are lax or perceived to be lax, and the gov't makes all sorts of pronuncements of yielding territory, and the killing a a Jew presumed to be a terrorist in ShfarAm as Muqata pointed out took years to come to perhaps a charge sheet but Arab MKs are covering, and the media prefers as victims Arabs rather than Jews, and that these contretemps have been going on for years up there at Yitzhar, don't be surprised that things get out of hand.

Posted by: Yisrael Medad | Sep 15, 2008 4:44:45 PM

Even a government that is sympathetic with the settlers has its hands tied. A state that is not rich in natural resources has to adhere to accepted civilized behaviors, even in the most difficult times, or it invites censure and isolation. It is exactly in those circumstances that vigilante justice, disproportionate reaction, and mob action, is called for.

How long do we need to watch the Arabs encourage and support terrorists while condemning them publicly? They know how to manipulate public opinion by shedding crocodile tears for murdered children while handing out sweets in the street.

It seems to me that those who aid and abett murder have chosen their own fate; if that fate cannot be dealt out by a legal government, then the people most effected should do whatever it takes to create a deterrence.

Posted by: Barzilai | Sep 15, 2008 4:50:52 PM

David, I think there was some calculation to the fact that the residents of Yitzhar (why perpetuate the "S" word?)went to the Arab village and caused trouble. Somewhere there is an officer in the IDF being told to "watch the crazies" and beef up the security of Yitzhar so that this incident doesn't happen again. The squeeky wheel gets the oil - and sometimes, unfortunately, "squeeking" means taking the law into your own hands. It shouldn't be this way, of course. And in most of the quieter yishuvim (like yours and mine)it wouldn't. But in places that have sufferred a lot of terrorist attacks (and you must admit that Yitzhar has received more than its share)this is the conclusion that they have made. I wouldn't presume to judge them.

Posted by: westbankmama | Sep 15, 2008 5:16:17 PM

The Arabs that would do us harm do indeed need to fear us. This does not need to be accomplished through anarchy.

Posted by: b. | Sep 16, 2008 7:38:17 AM

David (in comments):
it has been demonstrated that the media has the ability to sway large and influential segments of the public (see the disengagement from Gaza). The right and left are not budging from their positions... but there are a huge number of 'centrist' (closer to the middle) Israelis who are disillusioned by partisan politics and will likely vote for whatever they are feeling at the moment when the referendum comes up for a vote. Do you really want to risk having them hear that settlers are acting like animals just before such a vote comes up?
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
The sequelae of the Gaza withdrawal have come as a slap-in-the-face wakeup call to many of these middle-of-the-road people. They basically allowed themselves to be shlepped out of Lebanon and along the path of Oslo based on trust of the old secular guard. The missile attacks from north and south have cracked a lot of that trust.

Gaza not only did that: it changed forever how people parse the media reportage on settlers.

Remember the maps in the papers, with concentric circles showing the range of Hizbullah missiles over northern Israel? Many Israelis looked at those maps - and mentally shifted the loci from Lebanon to the West Bank in a "what if" exercise. The story of Sderot underscored that.

That's my point: the ability of the media to sway the public is waning. There are fewer apathetic shleppers than you think. Look at the polls.

Posted by: Ben-David | Sep 16, 2008 10:16:42 AM

am going off you "big time" treppenwitz... pity .. you seemed such a good read and now you have become a "soft american immigrant" ready to judge Israel in American values...get real...your living in the middle east and your neighbours have been throwing rocks for the last 60 years... in real democracies eventually the cavalery comes to the rescue... in "corrupt land" they do as they please and maybe having a 9 year old son stabbed might get even you off your forgiving high groung...alas the world doesn't care for the Jew...even if we turn summersaults with our love for fellow man...so don't angst over what they will think when we give the terrorists something to think about...its time to implement consequence for their actions...and if the army wont..then true Israelis will!

Posted by: anthony | Sep 16, 2008 10:27:04 AM

aliyah06 ... I doubt there is as much confusion about jurisdiction between the IDF and BP as the reports indicate. That simply gives them plausible deniability (i.e. playing 'rosh katan') to avoid responsibility for a failure.

asher ...Agreed.

aschoichet... To be clear, I have no right o judge their anger or frustration. But like it or not, actions are open to judgement by all. That is actually my point. By taking the law into their own hands, they represent all settlers as lawless anarchists to a public that honestly had started to change its mind about us. As to Joe settler's point and your assertion that lawlessness is part of the reality in the 'wild west bank', well, I say that some of the attacks against Jews are perpetrated not by ideologically-driven terrorists, but by angry Arabs who are just angry and feeling a similar sense of abandonment by the law as the settlers.

Yisrael Medad ... Sorry, not buying it. This 'boys will be boys' idea that things are bound to get out of hand is not an excuse for lawlessness. I agree that the government and its forces need to be made to do their job better. But acting in their stead is anarchy, plain and simple.

Barzilai ... Again, you have also painted a 'they had no alternative' scenario where the settlers were forced to act in the vacuum left by the government. Turn it around for a moment and look at how angry we all get when the Arabs claim that their terror attacks were spontaneous outbursts of rage that had to be 'understood' in light of the 'current situation'. Is that really the way we want to go with our violent actors?

westbankmama ... Even worse. If, instead of being a spontaneous outburst of violence, the attack on Shabbat was a planned and calculated action, we have bigger problems than I thought. The squeaky wheel may indeed get some grease... but the 'owner' may eventually decide it's less trouble to simply trade in the car.

b. ... Correct. A firm government policy of quiet when things are good , and massively disproportionate responses when things get bad, is the only answer.

Ben-David ... I agree that Lebanon and the results of the Gaza withdrawal have changed the way many people view reporting about settlers. But I think it would be foolish to use the word ' forever'. People in this part of the world are famous for their ability to conveniently forget all they've learned when faced with the promise (however empty) of peace. Never, never, never underestimate the power that the media has over the populace... especially when we give them the ability to defame us with the truth (or a version of it, anyway).

anthony ... Wonderful, yet another person who thinks so much of himself that he assumes he can hurt me by threatening to leave. Don't you get it.... I don't know you and therefore can't regret your absence. If you had been intellectually honest enough to simply state your case and then walk away (or stay and debate), I could respect that. But by doing the old "I'm taking my ball and going home' routine, you just sound childish. But if you really want to know how I'm taking the news that you are "...going off you "big time" treppenwitz"??? Puleeze. I deeply respect the people who disagree with me and tell me why. You? Be careful not to let the door hit you on the way out.

Posted by: treppenwitz | Sep 16, 2008 11:54:25 AM

David,
first don't get upset over anthony, he was so distraught he had no less than 5 typo's!
Now, WBM doesn't like the s-word, and prefers "residents".
I remember that the original group who went to a hotel in Hevron for passover 1968 and didn't leave until the gov't caved in and set up Qiryat Arba'a (which also wasn't enough...) drove round in a bus labelled "Mitnahlei Hevron" (I may even get round to finding a photo). In other words, they were proud to be settlers (so apparently is JoeSettler who doesn't call himself JoeResident yet).
I would rather know that that the guy (or guy-ette) is there for ideological reasons, much as I am sad as to what that ideology has done to the rest of us, than to know that s/he is there for the view/schools/breeze-in-the-afternoon/gang-from-back-in-the-States/or whatever reason of comfort.
That's probably why I went to an Artzi/Shomer HaTzair kibbutz, and not one of those "soft" Meuhad ones...

Posted by: asher | Sep 16, 2008 3:31:38 PM

So, if I got that right, most of the commenters think it is O.K. to attack a group of people because someone who might or might not be one if its members performed a malicious assault and the state force did not turn up fast enough with the culprit. (In this case, fast enough means 2 hours.)

If I got that right, to those commenters, evidence does not matter, rule of law does not matter, justice does not matter. They cannot be about self-defence, as the thug had already escaped. For all I have learned so far, it is not even about retaliation: The attackers from Yitzhar did not know who the assaulter was; they did not know whether he got support from the village and if so, by whom. Like any mob, they based their attack on a guess and their fury, and that was enough.

I so hope that I got that wrong. I also hope that the thug as well as the village attackers are brought to court. It would make the difference to that what my great-grandparents and grandparents wrote about farhuds.

Posted by: reader | Sep 16, 2008 4:39:31 PM

reader wrote:
They cannot be about self-defence, as the thug had already escaped. For all I have learned so far, it is not even about retaliation
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It's about DETERRENCE.

D'oh.

Posted by: Ben-David | Sep 16, 2008 10:10:15 PM

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