Below is also: Ha'aretz: "We face violence every single day"; Yedioth Ahronoth: "Hunt for Jewish Terrorist Cell" & "Emil Grunzweig's Niece Also Threatened"
Ha'aretz Editorial: "From denunciations to deeds"
9/26/08
The pamphlets offering a large reward to anyone who murders Peace Now activists and calling for a halakhic state in the West Bank remove all doubt about the identity of the terrorists who tried to murder Prof. Zeev Sternhell.
This internationally renowned expert on fascist movements in Europe, a Holocaust survivor whose entire family was murdered by the Nazis, was not another victim of some "wild weed," but of Jewish fascism itself, which continues to extend its roots. The criminals who set the pipe bomb outside Sternhell's home come from the same "garden" as Yona Avrushmi, the murderer of Peace Now's Emil Grunzweig; Baruch Goldstein, responsible for the massacre in the Machpela Cave; Yigal Amir, the murderer of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin; and the West Bank outpost hooligans, who abuse both Palestinians and the security forces.
An hour after the attack, politicians from both right and left hastened to denounce the "heinous act" and warn of the danger to freedom of expression and the foundations of democracy. Until the next time.
Human rights activists have for some time been reporting the security forces' failure to deal with the extreme right's systematic violations of the law. Haaretz reported last month that during a closed discussion, senior police commanders in the West Bank said the Israel Defense Forces and the police prefer to ignore settlers' increasing attacks on Palestinians so they won't have to deal with them. During the first half of 2008, there were 429 "disturbances of the peace" - a police euphemism for Israeli attacks on Palestinians, their property and the security forces - compared with 551 during the entire previous year. Many of the cases were closed, and the handful of felons who were brought to court got away with negligible sentences.
This week, the media reported that a special report by the Defense Ministry"s comptroller revealed severe deficiencies in the security forces' handling of the settlers who regularly attack Palestinian olive growers. Three and a half years after attorney Talia Sasson released her report on the illegal outposts, the cabinet has not even discussed most of her recommendations aimed at curbing land theft in the West Bank. Vice Premier Haim Ramon recently admitted that the illegal outposts are continuing to expand.
Both the government and the heads of the law enforcement agencies - the police commissioner, the Shin Bet chief, the attorney general and the Supreme Court president - are responsible for peace activists' safety. Denunciations are no substitute for a firm policy against extremist right-wing hooligans, including important rabbis who endorse killing Arabs and incite against Jews who object to their faith and ways.
Our well-guarded ministers cannot make do with lip service to democracy and freedom of expression. They must order the security forces to treat Jewish terrorism as harshly as they treat Palestinian terrorism. The attorney general must instruct the State Prosecutor's Office to demand that the courts impose severe penalties on Jewish transgressors.
Yesterday, they aimed their weapons at Palestinian farmers. Today, they are murdering members of the Israeli intelligentsia. Leniency toward violence is tantamount to cooperation with the terrorists.
YNET: "Everyone is a target" by Nahum Barnea
Sternhell attack shows that far right may target anyone who holds different views
Professor Ze'ev Sternhell survived the Holocaust while hiding in the city of Lvov, after his parents were murdered by the Nazis. Ever since then, he does not hide from anyone. In his main area of specialization, 20th Century European thinking, he exposed the fascist roots of elements in the French Right. Many important French political figures were hurt. One filed a libel suit against him, and lost.
Sternhell doesn't go easy on anyone. I can attest to this personally, as he was my lecturer at Hebrew University's political science department. He does not go easy on the Israeli Right as well. His articles against the occupation, settlement enterprise, and settlers are direct, blatant, and uncompromising.
If we try to affiliate him with a political camp, we can say that he belongs to the old Left, the one that combined Zionist patriotism with humanistic values. Sternhell did not come to the Left from popular culture. He came from Golani. He cares about what goes on around here, painfully so for himself and those he criticizes.
If I'm not mistaken, in recent years his writing has become a little more conciliatory. Perhaps it's the age (he's 73-years-old.) Perhaps it's the changes that the political establishment has been going through. When Sharon, the father of the settlements, eliminates the Gaza settlements, and when Olmert, who started his political career by declaring that we should not be giving up even an inch of Israel, now seeks to return many inches, the historic lines of separation between Right and Left are softening up.
This year he was awarded the Israel Prize. The prize was awarded for his impressive contribution, in international standards, to the study of political thinking. I was happy to hear about the prize just like a student happy for his teacher. Yet others were not a happy. One rightist group petitioned the High Court of Justice against the decision. Sternhell chose not to respond to his critics that time. The High Court judges threw them out.
Thursday morning, a pipe bomb exploded outside Professor Sternhell's home in Jerusalem. All signs indicated that the planting of the explosive device was politically motivated. Someone who does not like Sternhell's views sought to convey a message. The bomb was small. Fortunately, Sternhell only suffered minor leg injuries.
Shin Bet didn't know
Nonetheless, this still is highly disturbing. It is disturbing precisely because it's so unspecified: Sternhell does not evacuate outposts, he does not hand over territory to the Palestinians, and he does not put rightist offenders in jail. He merely expresses, in writing, views that are relatively prevalent among the Israeli public, including the top political leadership. If he is a target, almost anyone who does not think like the far right can become a target. Everyone is facing a threat.
In 1983, Emil Grunzweig was murdered in a Peace Now demonstration in Jerusalem. The killer, Yona Avrushmi, did not plan to murder. He hurled a hand grenade at the protestors, and that's what materialized. Yet there is almost no doubt that the attack on Professor Sternhell was premeditated. Someone chose a target, followed him, prepared the explosive device, and planted it.
The Shin Bet didn't know about it. The police didn't know about it. The Shin Bet is faltering when it comes to politically-motivated Jewish criminality. It's faltering even though anyone who deals with security in Israel knows that the rebellion among a certain strata in the settlements and their periphery has reached boiling point and is manifested daily through violent acts against Palestinians and soldiers.
The Shin Bet's weakness partly stems from a deliberate policy and partly from investigation constraints and emotional obstacles. Meanwhile, we have a police force in Israel only for the purpose of creating huge newspaper headlines. A total of 28,000 police officers are employed by the Israel Police, yet we don't have a police force.
Had I believed in praying, I would pray that the person who targeted Professor Sternhell will turn out to be a nutty student who wanted to avenge a low grade, or a member of a crime family who got the wrong address. Unfortunately, the chances that this is what happened are almost nil.
Jerusalem Post: "Sternhell: Attack is a risk to democracy"
Sep. 26, 2008
Two days after a pipe bomb was placed at his door, Israel Prize winner Prof. Ze'ev Sternhell accused right wing elements in the attempt to hurt him.
Lightly wounded in the attack, Sternhell was interviewed by Israel Radio from his hospital bed, saying "it was obvious that this was the work of the extreme right wing. It could have been a lone lunatic, an organization, a cell of three or a whole settlement which have to decided to 'set the record straight' with me."
"[The attack] could not come from anywhere else; I am not Abergil," Sternhell said, referring to the mafia kingpin.
Sternhell warned that the attack on him constituted a veritable danger to the future of Israeli democracy.
"These are processes that I have been studying for years. Society is not responding as it should. One of the worst incidents was when [then prime minister] Yitzhak Shamir defined the Jewish underground as 'excellent young men, real patriots'. The moment these people are not defined as criminals is where the problem begins," he said.
"Democracy is a fragile form of government based on [societal] conventions. If these conventions are not protected they will collapse. These bastards were not worried they might kill a whole family," he said.
"If someone thinks he can physically hurt another only because this other has a different opinion, democracy cannot exist. Democracy requires that discussions, as heated as they get, remain within the realm of speech. Thus decisions are made by the majority while protecting the minority's rights."
"I have been saying this for years," Sternhell summed up. "Occupation is illegitimate. There is a right to oppose it and this has to be done nonviolently."
Police have suggested the attack was based on an ideological background but has not yet accused any party of perpetrating it.
Ha'aretz: "'We face violence every single day'"
By Ofri Ilani
For almost 40 years, ever since he began his doctoral studies at the Sorbonne, Prof. Zeev Sternhell has researched the extreme right and its acts of violence. Yesterday, he came face-to-face with his research subject, when he was lightly wounded by a pipe bomb placed outside his house.
Many academics and left-wing activists were shocked by the news and warned of further violence against outspoken leftists in Jerusalem. However, others said they were not surprised, charging that violence is deeply rooted in the extreme right.
"We are exposed to violence every week and some of us have been hurt," said Gila Savirsky, a member of the leftist group Women in Black. The group has held weekly Friday demonstrations in Jerusalem's Paris Square for over 20 years and has often been subject to verbal and physical abuse. "Every Friday, they come and threaten us. When there are terror attacks, it gets worse. We are seen as natural victims of extremist right-wing anger."
Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer said his group receives threats on a weekly basis. "Peace Now activists are threatened all the time," he said. "Our coordinator receives threats every day."
Still, Oppenheimer said he was shocked by the attack on Sternhell, because he was not a decision maker, but only a commentator.
"Jewish terror exists in Jerusalem," said Prof. Yaron Ezrahi, a colleague and former student of Sternhell's at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "We are at a turning point, from a culture of illegality that arose in the settlements to a culture of violence. This is a deep change that threatens our system. The murder of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin has given birth to a thousand admirers of Yigal Amir [his assassin]."
Ezrahi said the people who targeted Sternhell chose him because of the strength of his convictions. "No force in the world will silence him," he added.
Sternhell's ideological rival, Prof. Shlomo Aharonson, also denounced the attack. "We are political opponents and do not agree with each other, but despite that, I will fight anyone who tries to silence him," he said.
Other academics said the attack on an individual who is neither a politician nor a public figure sets a worrying precedent. Prof. Shlomo Zand of Tel Aviv University, who has also been threatened by right-wing extremists, said that to date, most of their violence has been aimed at Palestinians, not Jews. "I'm glad I don't live in Jerusalem," he joked.
Labor Party chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israelis must not permit such attacks to occur."We must speak with one loud, clear voice and say that we will not allow anyone, from any dark corner of Israeli society, to harass people, especially not people whose opinions are as unusual, clear and articulate as those of Prof. Sternhell," Barak said. "This talented person never refrained from expressing his opinion ... which was that of a liberal voice, a democratic voice, a sane voice. I expect the police and law enforcement authorities to do everything possible to find the culprits."
Mazal Mualem contributed to this report
Yedioth Ahronoth: "Hunt for Jewish Terrorist Cell"
by Danny Adino Ababa et al.
The GSS and the police have begun intensive activity to identify the Jewish terrorist cell that planted the bomb at the entrance to the home of Prof. Zeev Sternhell. The Israel Prize laureate for the current year was slightly injured in the legs and it is assumed that those who planted it did not intend to kill him.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert personally ordered GSS Director Yuval Diskin to carry out a thorough and speedy investigation and to bring the perpetrators to justice. "This is a shocking case," Olmert said. At present it is believed that it was not an isolated case, only the first, and that the cell will attack other people connected with the Peace Now organization. GSS veterans expressed the view that the cell knows how the GSS works, and took steps to avoid being exposed before the bomb was planted, and to ensure that no clues were left at the scene.
One of the possibilities that will be examined is that the attackers are a right wing group which aims to stop the ongoing surveillance by Peace Now which monitors and maps building activity in the settlements. Prof. Sternhell, who is 73 years old, is a historian and a world authority on fascism, and returned just two days ago from France, and therefore the police believe that those who planted the bomb were watching his movements and knew exactly when he returned home. Close to 1:00 in the morning two days ago, Sternhell stepped out of his home in Jerusalem's Shai Agnon Street, to close the outside door. It was at that moment that the bomb was detonated, injuring his legs. "It's true that it was a small bomb, but it could have caused him to lose a leg," a Jerusalem police source said.
Large numbers of police arrived at the house, and they found dozens of leaflets signed by the " State Army of Liberators." The leaflets said: "A prize of 1.1 million shekels is promised to anyone who kills a member of Peace Now." It went on to say: "The State of Israel has become our enemy. The time has come to establish a state ruled according to Jewish law in Judea and Samaria. The time for the Kingdom of Judea has come."
Prof. Sternhell will be discharged from hospital today. Yesterday he issued a statement to the press saying that there could be neither forgiveness nor atonement for the attack on him. "If the act was not committed by a lone lunatic but by an element representing a political stream, this is the beginning of the road to the disintegration of democracy. The act in itself is testimony to the fragility of Israeli democracy, and to the need to come to its defense, with determination and decisiveness."
"It must be clear," Sternhell continued. "They did not succeed in intimidating me, but any member of my family could have opened that door, and that can never be forgiven."
His wife, Ziva, told investigators that she and the family have been receiving anonymous telephone calls, accompanied by threats and curses. "We are not connected with the criminal families, and therefore it's easy to guess who is behind the explosion."
After his discharge from hospital today, Sternhell intends to rest at home for a few days.
Yedioth Achronoth: "Emil Grunzweig's Niece Also Threatened"
by Zvi Singer
In recent months there has been a growing number of threats against left wingers and members of the Peace Now organization. Among those who received threatening phone calls is Emily Grunzweig, aged 24, niece of the late Emil Grunzweig, who was murdered during a Peace Now demonstration 25 years ago.
Grunzweig, a law and political science student, was until recently an organizer in the left wing movement. "At first there were violent and threatening phone calls in the style of: "You are traitors and criminals," she told Yedioth Ahronoth yesterday. "When my full name appeared on the Peace Now statements, the phone calls became much more blatant, threatening and specific. The anonymous people who made the threats promised me that my end would be same as Emil's, if I don't stop my activity in Peace Now. I receive a threat at least once every two days."
In spite of the harassment and threats to her life, Emily Grunzweig refrained from complaining to the police. Today, after the bomb attack on Prof. Sternhell, she admits that this was a mistake.
After the explosion, police knocked on the door of Peace Now Secretary General Yariv Oppenheimer, and told him that they would be guarding his house. "Defense Minister Ehud Barak phoned me and I told him that we expect him to take steps to deal with this threat," Oppenheimer said. "Barak promised that he would take the matter seriously."
"The phone callers do not hang up quickly as soon as they have made their threat," Oppenheimer said. "They explain calmly that if we continue doing what we are doing, our end will be like that of Emil Grunzweig, who was killed by a grenade thrown by Yona Avrushmi." Oppenheimer says the extreme right "is a threat to the existence of Israeli democracy. The law enforcement agencies have to end their leniency towards these lawbreakers amongst the settlers and their supporters, before another political murder takes place in Israel."