Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Settler critic, Zeev Sternhell, injured in rightist pipe bomb attack

Haaretz reports that distinguished Hebrew University political scientist Zeev Sternhell was lightly injured by a pipebomb blast at his home. Police found flyers nearby which offered a $300,000 reward for anyone who killed a member of Peace Now:

Police sources told Israel Radio on Thursday that signs increasingly point to extreme right-wing elements who may have been responsible for planting the explosive that wounded Sternhell.

Gee, d’ya think??

The Meretz party chair had the most cogent and telling response:

“They better not talk to us about a few bad weeds,” Meretz chairman Haim Oron said. “These phenomena spring up on the right-wing [of the political spectrum].”

“This thuggish and dangerous act is the result of the continuing see-no-evil approach toward the vicious violence against soldiers and police officers and anyone else who doesn’t agree with the brutish section of the extreme right wing,” Oron said.

Sternhell, who was awarded the 2008 Israel Prize (in Hebrew), the Israeli equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize, for his political commentary, is an outspoken critic of the Occupation and Israeli settlements.  Wikipedia notes that he is one of the world’s leading experts on fascism.  This, no doubt and unfortunately, will provide the good professor with further material to ponder in his research and writing.

I have written frequently in this blog about verbal incitement by the pro-Israel extreme right against Jews deemed insufficiently loyal to the State of Israel.  A number of Orthodox Jews, including a dean at Yeshiva University, have called for prime ministers who give away Jerusalem to be hung.  Avigdor Lieberman has advocated hanging Arab members of Knesset and called an Israeli Jewish human rights lawyer a “kapo.”  Israeli-American rightists like Rachel Neuwirth call for Israeli peace activists to be tried in “Nuremberg-like tribunals” for crimes against the Jewish people.  Some of my right wing readers dismiss or minimize the significance of such threats.  They cannot be minimized.  Israel has already lost a prime minister to such hatred.  While those I mentioned above might not pull a trigger or hurl a bomb, they create a political climate in which such activities are made kosher.

As sad as it is for me to say this, there are evil Jews out there.  Jews who not only wish other Jews harm, but are prepared to act on their wishes.  They must be hunted down and treated like the dogs they are.  I am sorry to speak so harshly, but can we do any less when confronted by such unmitigated evil?  To do any less, invites the far-right to target its most articulate opponents for murder.