Israel unsure of how to deal with "the Enemy Within".

[eyelight]

The escalating series of "price tag" attacks in Israel and in the occupied territories have to authorities confused.

Israeli Soldiers Arrested Over Ties to ‘Price Tag’ Attacks

The “price tag” attacks by West Bank settlers against Palestinians as well as the Israeli military have been a growing problem for the Israeli government, with intelligence community officials warning it is a situation which threatens to blow up in their face. But the latest arrests include three members of the Israeli military, suggesting the IDF may have to look at threats from within going forward.

Fury in Israel After Settlers Attack Army Base

Long a source of much lip service and very little actual policy change, the “price tag” attacks appear to have reached a critical mass today in Israel, as dozens of settlers attacked an Israeli Army base in the occupied West Bank, destroying vehicles and setting fires.

Announcing that the attack “crossed all the lines,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised retaliation in a big way, saying he would “fight with all my power as the prime minister” and saying that he has asked Shin Bet and the Defense Ministry to draft a plan to “take care of the rioters.”

Netanyahu: Violent Settlers Not ‘Terrorists’

The Israeli far-right coalition government is struggling to come to terms with yesterday’s attack by settlers on a military base in the occupied West Bank, with knee-jerk hawkishness running afoul of many of the factions’ central tenets, that settlers are uniquely virtuous and can do no wrong....
...Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to avoid too much controversy himself, insisting that he would not allow the settler movement responsible for the attack to ever be labeled a “terror group.”

It's exposed a double standard which belies the "all are equal within Israel" and "only democracy in the Middle East" mantras.
The IDF has decided it can fire on Jews now.
Seems that up to now Jews have had some sort of immunity from being shot by the army.

Army to revisit procedure following violence directed against Ephraim Brigade. 'A soldier must have no doubts as to how to act when a Jew comes to throw a concrete block on his head,' military source says.

IDF forces refrained from using weapons in previous clashes with Jewish rioters and physically blocked the assailants. Ephraim Brigade deputy commander Lt. Col. Tzur Harpaz did just that on Tuesday when he left his weapon in the jeep before being hit with a stone in his head.

The army is aware of the soldiers' psychological difficulty in confronting Jews and the matter will be addressed in briefs and talks with the troops. The forces will revisit fire protocols in cases involving figures approaching IDF bases and posts.

A soldier guarding an entrance to a base is required to follow the fire protocol when suspicious figures approach the base, but this is based on the assumption that any such suspect is a Palestinian terrorist. "Tuesday's event undermines this perception," the officer said.

"The goal is that soldiers have no doubts as to how to handle each case. A soldier cannot become confused when a Jew comes to throw a concrete block on him.

Some of the comments which follow that story on Ynetnews really do expose the (crazy part of the) Israeli mindset.

2. You are fomenting a Civil War
The escalation of violence against home owners and their families in Judea and Samaria will only lead to violence Jew against Jew and to Civil War. The victors will be the Arabs and the rest of the world laughing their heads off at weakened Israel. When you go against your sons and daughters with a heavy hand you can almost expect negative consequences.
Eli , Jerusalem (12.14.11)

12. Civil war.
Eretz Yisrael was conquered with weapons and will be defended with weapons. G-D is our source of energy and stamina. The IDF today are our main enemies because they will legitimize the division of the land with the Palestinians. We are at war and war does cannot be won inside the Parliament or in newspapers headlines, but on the battlefield
Sarah B. , U.S.A./Israel (12.14.11)

29. Jews don't shoot Jews
Im an IDF troop, I volountered for the army to protect Jews, not to confront my brothers and demolish Jewish homes!!! If any Jew commits a crime that's police business to deal with it not army's. Any commander that gives an order to fire at Jews is a criminal and has to be judged and dismissed, so as any soldier raising his weapon at Jew!
Levy , Jerusalem (12.14.11)

Trouble brewing!

[Levellers]

The contradictions within the terrorist state of Israel are as inevitable as is the failure of their Lebensraum policy.

[Airwave]

You reap what you sow ,and in Israelis case thats the so called settler movement .let loose on mass when it suits the Government the are the inevitable consequences of indulging a people's lowest common element.Racism and a God told me to do it mentality.all the really are are the vanguard of Ethnic Cleansers. Sanitizing the land for its new owners .to pretend that the are so sort of modern day Pioneers is Absurd .

[Hewson]

A God-given Right.

That's how settlers see their place on the occupied lands. It's the same kind of mindless fanaticism that drives al Qaeda activists. Islam has its issues with Sunni and Shia factions often at each other's throats and the Israelis have their settlers – mean, vicious, primeval fundamentalists who see enemies everywhere, not least within Judaism. Israel's policy of land-theft to settle these barbarians in their midst will backfire on them in time. When a peace deal is eventually brokered these fanatics will have to be shifted back out again, probably into Israeli towns and cities. And that's when people like Netanyahu will see the fruits of his big lab experiment. A whole new breed of terrorist with a deep hatred of secular Israeli society.

It goes to show just how subjective the word 'terrorist' is. If we're to believe Natanyahu it seems the word can only apply to particular religious groupings, regardless of the violence perpetrated. That shouldn't come as a surprise, given the casualties inflicted over the years by indiscriminate bombing, including the use of white phosphorous bombs.

Throwing rocks can label you a terrorist. But only if you're not a Jew.

[EoinMag]

It'll be interesting to watch this unfold and see how the usual apologists for Israel use weasel words to justify Bibi's inability to call a spade a spade.

[Shlumiel]

Of course they are terrorists. They Israeli media calls them terrorists, its because of that Netanyahu decided to declare they are not terrorists for some odd reason.

However, it is important to understand that a democracy is the law of the people and one law for all, while upholding minority rights. In this case we are talking about the citizens of the country. The country is obligated to treat all citizens equally. In the same way that the US does not treat US citizens and illegal immigrants from Mexico who live in Texas as equals, and is not obligated by any democratic standard to do so, so does Israel treat Palestinians and Israeli citizens differently. Of course there is a different set of laws for Palestinians and one for Israelis, because they are two different nationalities. The Palestinian Authority, which governs over 94% of Palestinians has its own set of laws, based on the Jordanian laws. The PA also treats Israelis and Palestinians differently.

80% of Israelis are Jews, and probably 100% of Israelis living in the West Bank are Jews. The only non-Palestinians that soldiers encounter are Jews.

Therefore, Jewish soldiers might have a problem harming Jewish price taggers perhaps in a similar way to a person having more of a problem harming a cousin at his house who is out of control vs. harming a burglar who is breaking into the house.
In a similar way, Arabs in Israel are not obligated to serve in the Israeli military because of the personal conflict it might cause for Arabs to face their brothers and sisters as soldiers.

The comments you see with the interviewed religious soldier is quite understandable in some way. There are clear rules about opening fire, however the soldier does not want to open fire on his own kin. This might be in a similar way a Muslim might feel remorse about opening fire on another Muslim if he is doing something wrong than he would feel about opening fire on a Christian. Or a Christian opening fire on a Muslim rather than another Christian.

However, when dealing with people who's intention is to do harm, I think there needs to be one way to deal with all.

[Riadach]

Do we even need to ask what would have happened to a Palestinian or Israeli Arab who smashed the soldier's face. Far from escaping without arrest, he'd have been lucky to escape with his life.

[flavirostris]

These guys are basically National Socialists with yarmulkes. Good article in Ha'aretz about the Gush Emunim.

The strategy that follows from the ideology of Gush Emunim is clear and simple: It perceives of the Six-Day War as the continuation of the War of Independence, both in terms of seizure of territory, and in its impact on the Palestinian population. According to this strategy, the occupation boundaries of the Six-Day War are the borders that Israel must set for itself. And with regard to the Palestinians living in that territory - those who did not flee or were not expelled - they must be subjected to a harsh regime that will encourage their flight, eventuate in their expulsion, deprive them of their rights, and bring about a situation in which those who remain will not be even second-class citizens, and their fate will be of interest to no one. They will be like the Palestinian refugees of the War of Independence; that is their desired status. As for those who are not refugees, an attempt should be made to turn them into "absentees." Unlike the Palestinians who remained in Israel after the War of Independence, the Palestinians in the territories should not receive Israeli citizenship, owing to their large number, but then this, too, should be of interest to no one.

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-...cracy-1.397625

[louis bernard]

Will Israel really deal with this problem?
“The Israeli Defense Forces are increasingly confronting a truth that many Palestinians learned awhile ago: A not-insignificant number of the Israelis who have settled on the West Bank are unhinged zealots who, in their self-righteousness, myopia and contempt for those with whom they disagree, comprise a kind of Jewish Hamas.”
Will Israel Declare War on Violent Settlers?: Jeffrey Goldberg - Bloomberg

[Riadach]

Haaretz has done a map up of the disputed West Bank settler outposts that Israel is planning to legalise. The significant element of course is that many of them are built on private palestinian land. Of course, such land theft is nothing new, but certain members of this site would deny it occurs at all.

WATCH: Haaretz interactive map of West Bank outposts - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News