(MintPress) — Acts of Jewish settler violence against Palestinians tripled in 2009-2011, and continue largely unabated through 2012, according to Israeli human rights organizations. The unwillingness to properly investigate acts of settler violence in the West Bank and acts of violence against Arab citizens of Israel has created what U.N. representatives call “a climate of impunity” in Israel in which settlers can attack Palestinians and their property with little fear of reprisal from authorities.
The incidents of Palestinian terror in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel are well recorded by international media sources, frequently captivating headlines as Hamas continues to launch rockets into Israel. However, recent reports indicate that the less frequently discussed acts of settler terrorism are on the rise through the first half of 2012, threatening the safety and livelihood of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Israel.
While many moderate Israelis have spoken out against these crimes, the Netanyahu government has done little to crack down on settler violence. As attacks continue to escalate, political analysts believe this will only deepen the rift between secular, less pious Israelis and those driven by a religious fundamentalism irreconcilable with democracy and the rule of law.
Settler acts of terror
Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department issued its annual report on terrorism abroad. The marked increase in Jewish settler extremism was in the report, the first such time that “price-tag” attacks and vandalism were listed as acts of terror.
Violent confrontations are regularly recorded by Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, which reported the murder of 50 Palestinians. These murders were carried out by Israeli citizens, mostly settlers between the years 2000-2012. Few prosecutions ensued after these killings.
Amira Haas, a reporter for Haaretz, wrote of the growing number of violent settler assaults on Palestinians, saying, “In the first six months of the year, 154 assaults have been recorded, 45 of them around one village alone. Some fear that last year’s record high of 411 attacks – significantly more than the 312 attacks in 2010 and 168 in 2009 – could be broken this year.”
One such attack occurred earlier this week when two masked men attacked and wounded a 67-year-old Palestinian shepherd named Ismail Adara. Adara was grazing his flock when attacked by the assailants, thought to be from the nearby Jewish settlement of Mizpeh Yair.
After contacting the police and Rabbis for Human Rights, Adara was rushed to the hospital where he continues to recover from wounds inflicted on his neck and fingers. The victim also may have fractures in his skull.
Property destruction and religiously motivated hate crimes are on the rise as well. In 2011, 10 Palestinian mosques were destroyed, a sharp increase from six in 2010 and just one in 2009.
Additionally, thousands of Palestinian olive trees are destroyed by settlers each year in willful acts to eliminate one of the few sources of income enjoyed by Arab farmers in the West Bank.
Since 1967, around 800,000 Palestinian olive trees have been destroyed, including an estimated 7,500 in 2011. This has resulted in significant economic losses, as high as $55 million, according to a report by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of National Economy and the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem.
Duality of law
The lax prosecution of Jewish Israeli crimes against Palestinians highlights the unequal distribution of legal protection afforded some individuals, but not to others. “The Israeli government has not shown the political will to protect Palestinian civilians and has failed to commit sufficient resources to the job,” said Jessica Montell of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
While the government has gone to extraordinary lengths to protect the 500,000 settlers living in the West Bank, the failure to protect crimes against Palestinians is rooted in the duality of a legal system that grants citizenship and full rights to Jews while failing to extend those same rights to Palestinians.
Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights advocate and proponent of a two-state peace settlement, comments on this growing duality in Israel and the West Bank where laws based upon race and religious affiliation dictate the allocation of scarce resources. Barghouti commented on this issue at a conference in 2011, saying:
“What is apartheid? Apartheid is a system where you have two laws, two different laws, for two people living in the same area. If you don’t like the word apartheid, give me an alternative to a situation where a Palestinian citizen is allowed to use no more than 50 cubic meters of water per capita year, while an Israeli illegal settler from the West Bank is allowed to use 2,400. How would you classify a situation where the Israeli GDP per capita is about $30,000 while a Palestinian’s GDP per capita is less than $1,400?”
Many settlers live in the West Bank because of government incentivizes, subsidies and lower cost of living. However, a larger number move to the West Bank out of fervent religious conviction, citing Biblical support for Jewish control of Judea and Samaria.
The rise of religious messianism
Overall, the vast majority of these acts of terror have been committed by the members of Israel’s growing ultra-Orthodox religious minority. This constituency forms the backbone of Deputy Prime Minister Avigor Lieberman’s Yisrael Bitenu, “Israel is our home” party, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Many within the Likud coalition government have said previously that they support a two-state solution. However, their continued support for settlement expansion undermines this goal. Other smaller religious parties call for full annexation of the West Bank and Gaza to restore “biblical Israel,” believing that Palestinians should express their nationhood elsewhere.
The push behind these increasingly hawkish policies stems from the growing presence of the ultra-Orthodox and Haredim Orthodox communities throughout Israel.
A 2010 report by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics indicates that 8 percent of Jewish Israelis are ultra-Orthodox Haredim, while 13 percent fall into the “religiously Orthodox” category.
While secular Israeli Jews, those who typically support more moderate and center-left parties, still comprise about 43 percent of Jewish Israeli society, their size is diminishing because of small family size and emigration.
Conversely, the approximate 20 percent share of the ultra-Orthodox Jews supporting mostly conservative parties is poised to rise significantly in the coming years because of high birth rates.
The growing schism between secular, or less pious Jews, and their more religiously conservative co-nationals has by many accounts overtaken other ethnic and class divides among Israeli Jews, becoming perhaps the most salient division among Israeli Jews today.
This bitter divide is debated heavily as many ultra-Orthodox men do not work because they are Talmudic scholars supported financially by the government. Earlier this month, secular Israelis prevailed in extending mandatory military conscription to all Israelis, including the ultra-Orthodox who previously received exemptions for religious reasons.
This growing internal battle for the character of the Jewish state has affected the state’s aggressive settlement policy and will likely lead to increasing diplomatic and economic isolation for the Eastern Mediterranean state.
Yehuda Bauer, an Israeli commentator and one of the most prominent living Holocaust historians, commented on the issue during an Al Jazeera interview, saying:
“There is a danger of a violent Jewish radical, genocidal nationalism with a minority of Israeli Jews. There is such a minority, it’s very dangerous, I think we have to exert great pressure on these people to limit that, and finally to conquer it. This group of radical Jewish nationalists, genocidal radical Jewish nationalists, are a mirror image of radical Islam that wants to annihilate all the Jews in the world.”