Violence in the West Bank is tragically nothing new. I have scores of Palestinian relatives living there who have shared the violence they have seen firsthand — some acts perpetrated by Palestinian militants, others by Israeli soldiers, and a growing number by radical Israeli settlers. But what happened last week in the town of Hawara was unlike anything they had seen before.
A mob of Israeli settlers — estimated by some in the hundreds — descended upon the midsize town chanting “revenge.” Their justification was the death of two settlers who had been appallingly killed by a Palestinian militant. The result was an hourslong rampage.
The scale of the carnage is as deeply alarming as some Israeli government officials’ response.
As the BBC reported, one Palestinian family had to be rescued by paramedics after becoming trapped in their house when settlers laid burning tires outside their front door. Other Palestinians shared how they hid in their house seeking cover from the armed settlers, noting, “The [Israeli] army did nothing to protect us.” When it was over, the terrorists had destroyed countless homes, torched Palestinian stores and a slew of cars, injured approximately 350 Palestinians and killed Sameh Aqtash, a 37-year-old blacksmith who had just returned from volunteering in Turkey for the victims of the earthquakes.
The scale of the carnage is as deeply alarming as some Israeli government officials’ response. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack, the very extremists he has emboldened cheered this horrific attack. Knesset member Zvika Fogel — whose extreme-right party Otzma Yehudit is part of Netanyahu’s governing coalition — stated after the deadly rampage: “A closed, burnt Hawara — that’s what I want to see.” He added, “That’s the only way to achieve deterrence.”
But the most dangerous remarks came from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who called for wiping out this town of…
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