Hilul Hashem -- It's not Just for Haredi Fanatics Anymore...

The metaphorical bastard children of Meir Kahana and his fascist ilk are the latest righteous enemies of peace in Israel.

To be clear: Arabs own Arab land. While there's a slippery slope of purchases or acquisition of land for Israeli public and private interests, the point is that there's an understanding of property for money.

Fascist settler "children" from settlements across the West Bank have increased their attacks, both in number and visibility, over the years. As journalists have increasingly videotaped their attacks, they don masks, in the manner of their terrorist Arab counterparts. The key word is 'terrorists:' masks plus violence plus breaking the law plus advocating terror as a way of creating 'facts on the ground' = terror.

The Israeli body politic has been more than sluggish in responding to this threat; the video article (link in the header and here) shows soldiers tasked to guarding Arab farmers by day, and fighting Arab terrorists by night. What I don't understand is why we're not fighting Jewish terrorists by day. After all, if they're brazen enough to come out and confront innocent civilians, and even soldiers, shouldn't they suffer the same reactions and fate as their Arab counterparts?

During the first intifada I was in more fistfights and screaming matches with my fellow soldiers than I was with the Arabs in Nablus. We stopped an Israeli civilian who'd driven down one of the main street, emptying magazine after magazine of bullets into the windows lining the street. I put handcuffs on him (I'd been a cop back in the States). One of the officers from the Military Governor's office came by and insisted he be released. The two left, the officer's harm around the settler's shoulder. Had this been an Arab, driving down the streets of Hadera, firing indiscriminately into the windows of Jewish apartments, he'd be dead. Period.

It's precisely this insane imbalance of force and consequences that's brought us to where we are now. Can you blame Palestinians their fury at their schizophrenic treatment? And what are the real consequences to an Israeli government that treats crime as crime, terrorism as terrorism? What leg to Jewish terrorists have to stand on that their Arab compatriots do not share?

This is a time for Israel to act more like a member of the developed nations of the world. Sometimes one has to do unpopular things. Charging citizens for crimes for which they’re alleged (or documented) as having committed is about keeping Israel democratic. And it does nothing to protect the Jewish State.