Under the watchful eyes of the Israeli military occupation, colonists in Palestine are conducting their criminal acts against Palestinian civilians with absolute impunity. The so-called “price taggers”, who usually leave their racist graffiti on the walls of burned mosques and vandalised Palestinian properties and farms, are exacting a price from Palestinian civilians “for staying put in the ‘land of Eretz’ or Israel.”

These make the most notorious Israeli gangs in Palestine. In fact, the “price taggers” are conducting their terrorist activities not only in Palestine — occupied in 1967 — but also against the Palestinians of 1948 who hold Israeli citizenship. Uprooting olive trees, destroying cars, preventing Palestinian farmers from reaching their farms and orchards and burning Islamic houses of worship have become routine sufferings in the lives of Palestinians of 1948 and the Palestinians of 1967.

Such terrorist acts against Palestinian civilians committed by Israeli colonists, educated and brainwashed in Jewish schools, clearly point to “a religious war” being conducted against Palestinian Muslims and Christians in the territories of historical Palestine under the auspices of the Israeli government who has turned a blind eye by completely ignoring these racist and criminal attacks aimed at forcing Palestinians to leave their homeland. However, these activities have led to an uproar in Israel with unprecedented criticism in the media, pointing to the government’s connivance with the colonists’ actions and calling for their indictment in Israeli courts of law.

Under the title ‘The Danger of A State within A State’, Israeli journalist Shai Golden, wrote in Haaretz that “the reasons behind the heinous activities of the [Jewish] fundamentalists in Israel, especially the [colonists], are the weakening of the institutions of the State that are responsible for enforcing the rule of law and are failing in their duty which would ultimately lead to the deterioration of the very legal structure of the State”. He asked the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whether he would “strike with an iron hand against the criminal activities of the Israeli [colonist] gangs or whether he would only condemn these activities with words without enforcing accountability?”

He further asks: “Will the Prime Minister [Netanyahu] stop the proposed un-conscientious laws being tabled by right-wingers, which would tear apart the cohesiveness of the matrix of the state of Israel, or will he allow hoodlums to keep attacking civilians with impunity?” He finally warned that “Israel has become a state in which one law governs one half of the population and another law governs the other half” who he said “violates the law with impunity making the State subservient to its political lobby who has become the decision-maker in Israel”.

“Jewish hooligans in the West Bank have to be confronted”, wrote Nahum Barnea in a recent article in Yediot Ahronot.

He said: “The Israeli police and army have to be ready to protect themselves from these armed hoodlums who are much stronger than the Prime Minister of Israel. There must be one law applied to both, the Palestinians and the Israelis alike in a democratic country ruled by law”.

Commenting on the Israeli government’s support to colonists, he wrote that “the government claims in courts of law that its policy is to dismantle an illegal [colony], but in reality it supplies the [colony] with roads, electricity and water and assigns the army to protect it. The youth of these [colonies] are taught the rules of the game. They really do not know God and the [Israeli] government shows cowardice [in confronting them]”.

More criticism came from Israeli playwright, writer and theatre director Joshua Sobol who sarcastically wrote about, “Unknown entities in control of a state of unknowns”.

“These unknowns are being inspired by unknown Rabbis from unknown [colonies],” he wrote and, “when the results of their actions are attained, the unknowns gain official recognition. Most of their actions are directed against Palestinians. The unknowns burned mosques and the unknowns pulled out olive trees. The unknowns vandalised an Israeli army base and stoned a military vehicle with a very high ranking officer in it who said that he never saw so much hate in someone’s eyes as much as he saw that day in the eyes of the unknowns”.

Sobol went on to say that “when European countries demand with extreme insolence that the Israeli government must apprehend these unknowns who were sent by God and take them to court, the foreign ministry’s answer was: Do not interfere in our internal affairs and we will protect our unknowns till their fire reaches a point that consumes the entire world”!