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Reuters: "Israeli anti-settlement academic wounded in attack"

Israel Radio said leaflets were left at the scene offering a one million shekel ($294,000) reward to anyone killing a member of Israel's Peace Now movement
UPI: "Israeli historian wounded in pipe-bombing" follows the Reuters Article

Thu Sep 25, 2008

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A prominent Israeli academic and sharp critic of settlement-building in the occupied West Bank was wounded in a pipe bomb attack on Thursday that police suspect was carried out by Israeli ultranationalists.

Professor Zeev Sternhell, a political scientist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, was slightly hurt in the explosion at the front gate of his home.

"After an initial investigation, police believe he was targeted because of his ideologies," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, providing no further details.

Israel Radio said leaflets were left at the scene offering a one million shekel ($294,000) reward to anyone killing a member of Israel's Peace Now movement that opposes Jewish settlement on land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Sternhell, who has lectured at Peace Now events and has an anti-settlement essay on its website, has been a long-time critic of construction of Jewish enclaves in the West Bank.

Palestinians say Jewish settlements could deny them a viable and contiguous state in the West Bank. Many settlers believe they have a Biblical right to live in the area they call Judea and Samaria.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called Sternhell a member of Israel's "peace camp" who has never shied away from making his opinions known.

"Those in the darkest corners of Israeli society should not be allowed to harass ... people speaking with as clear and sane a voice as Zeev Sternhell," Barak said at a meeting on Thursday with legislators from his centre-left Labour Party.

(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Louise Ireland)


UPI: "Israeli historian wounded in pipe-bombing"

Sept. 25, 2008
 
JERUSALEM, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- An Israeli historian known as a "liberal voice" suffered slight leg wounds Thursday after a pipe bomb exploded outside his door in Jerusalem, police said.

Ze'ev Sternhell, a political science professor at Hebrew University, had received telephone threats for some time and police told Ynetnews.com they believe the bombing was linked to the threats and based on ideological differences.

Police said fliers found in the streets near Sternhell's home promised a reward of $325,000 to anyone who kills a member of Peace Now, left-wing non-governmental organization. it wasn't clear whether Sternhell was a member of Peace Now.

Police assigned a security detail to Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer, who said, "The extremist right poses an existential danger to Israeli democracy."

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the country was "returning to the sinister phenomenon of using bombs against people, in this case against a very capable man who has never been afraid to voice his opinion, because his position ... is that of a liberal voice, a democratic voice, a sane voice amidst the incitement."

Barak said law enforcement officials "will not allow anyone from any dank corner of Israeli society to persecute anyone else."