Jewish terrorism

An AWOL Israeli soldier, Eden Tzuberi (19), who refused to obey orders to
participate in the removal of settlers from Gaza, opened fire yesterday on a
bus in Shfaram, an Israeli Arab town in the Galilee, killing four and
wounding 12. One of the dead was the Arab bus driver, and he also shot at
pedestrians. Although the Israeli police finally came, by then the bus was
surrounded by a mob, that caught the soldier and murdered him (or "lynched"
him in Israeli parlance).
There are many questions raised by this Jewish terrorist incident. First,
how was he able to remain AWOL for two months (since June) all the time with
his service rifle, especially since he was on a security services
watch-list? His non-religious family reported his presence (with gun) in
their apt. near Petach Tikva and his mother called the Army and begged them
to arrest and disarm him. Why did the Army security not respond? His
religious friends at the settlement of Tapuah in Shomron where he had lived
for some time made no secret of the fact that his action was motivated by
right wing/religious beliefs and opposition to the disengagement policy.
His action was no doubt premeditated. Why did he attack in Galilee? He
wanted to take advantage of the fact that most of the police/IDF are spread
thin protecting Gaza, and to draw reinforcements away from there to the rest
of country, where the crime rate has been steadily rising. Because of the
lack of police/IDF presence he was presumably able to get away with being
AWOL for this long period.
Why did he attack this particular Arab town? Because it is a town where Arab
Muslims, Christians and Druse live side-by-side in relative peace with each
other and Israel. Jewish extremists want to provoke inter-faith conflict
and use that as an excuse for "transferring" the Arabs out of Eretz Israel.
Their argument is that if this Government can transfer Jews from Gaza and
Shomron, so they should transfer many more Arabs from Galilee and elsewhere.
Unfortunately it is difficult to argue against this precedent, just as it is
difficult to argue that the Gaza pull-out is not motivated by the success of
Arab terrorism, as Hamas and most Palestinians believe. But, Hamas
immediately announced that they will not be tricked into responding to this
incident, thereby giving the IDF cause to attack Gaza before the pullout
occurs.
Yesterday PM Ahmed Querei of the PA made a speech in which he announced,
"today Gaza, tomorrow Jerusalem." This is the nightmare of the right wing,
that Sharon or someone else will now be forced or will accept that giving up
part or all of Jerusalem, following the Gaza precedent, will placate the
Arabs. For them, and most Israelis, this is anathema. So one can view this
attack as a completely predictable first step in the "civil war" within
Israel, that pits the right wing extremist bloc against the rest of the
country, with many people with torn loyalties in the middle.
But, before we get carried away with this scenario, it is important to
remember that barely 40 Jewish soldiers out of 50,000 have refused to obey
orders to carry out the disengagement policy in Gaza, and all organized
groups, from PM Sharon to the Yesha Settlers Council, have strongly
condemned this incident as an unjustified case of terrorism. Although there
will be demonstrations by Israeli Arabs, they know that support for this
kind of thing within Israel is minimal (unlike among the Palestinians where
attacks on Israeli civilians are widely supported), and hopefully, unless
this is part of an organized campaign, the incident will remain an
aberration in Israeli society.