Jewish extremists, flouting the authority of the elected leadership in the West Bank, continued to make violent forays into Arab townships and villages over the weekend, despite appeals by the security forces not to take the law into their own hands.
The situation posed a dilemma for Defense Minister Moshe Arens, who appeared to have convinced the Council of Jewish Mayors to reject vigilantism as a response to recent road ambushes and other terrorist acts perpetrated by Arabs.
The problem is that the so-called “action committees” that are responsible for the violence no longer accept the authority of the Council of Mayors, the elected representative body of Jewish settlers in the administered territories.
They demand that Arens negotiate with them instead of the mayor.
The action committees apparently are governed by religious injunctions proclaimed by militant rabbis who influence Orthodox, ultranationalist settlers to bypass their recognized leaders.
For the first time since Jewish settlement in the territories began, there is no single, officially recognized body in charge.
Arens is unwilling to negotiate with a welter of ad hoc groups. But the only alternative to an all-out confrontation between the Israel Defense Force and the settlers is an understanding between the two parties.
An understanding is possible only if the IDF can convince the setters that it can best cope with the growing number of Arab terrorist attacks.
There was speculation here Sunday that another “senior minister” would mediate between Arens and the militants, but no indication who that minister might be.
SHOTS REPORTEDLY FIRED
High on the list of settler demands is legal action against leaders of the Palestinian intifada. The settlers have protested against the apparent immunity given Palestinian leaders such as Faisal Husseini and Hanan Ashrawi.
Ashrawi has been serving as spokeswoman for the Palestinian delegation engaged in bilateral peace talks with Israelis in Madrid last month and most recently in Washington.
Jews from Kiryat Arba and Hebron, associated with the late Rabbi Meir Kahane’s extremist Kach movement, ranged through the neighboring Arab village of Si’ir on Friday, smashing windows, solar heaters and one car, local residents reported
The Arabs complained that the settlers fired shots during their rampage.
In Nablus, local residents said that Jews fired shots at houses and cars in the Rafidiya neighborhood. Four cars were reportedly damaged.
The anti-Arab Kach movement, ousted from the Knesset several years ago for its blatantly racist platform and program, seems to be behind the incursions.
At the other end of the political spectrum, about 5,000 members of the Peace Now movement on Friday formed a human chain in Silwan, an Arab enclave in East Jerusalem, to protest the recent takeover of Arab houses by Jewish settlers there.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
