“The military and police did nothing to prevent the felling of Palestinian olive trees despite having the names of the settlers responsible, the head of the Shin Bet security service claimed Tuesday.
“Yuval Diskin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that the Shin Bet had handed over the names of members of the ‘hilltop youth’ from the West Bank settlements of Yitzhar and Itamar who were involved in uprooting the olive trees, but the security forces refrained from taking any action.
“According to Diskin, the Israel Defence Forces and Israel Police ‘are turning a blind eye, and doing nothing to deal with this phenomenon.'”
Israel is currently experiencing a titanic battle between a majority population keen to maintain separation between synagogue and state and a rabid minority who don’t recognise anything other than a state governed by Rabbinical teachings. This last group’s ideology is little different to Islamic fanaticism.
Israel has only itself to blame for supporting, funding and protecting the settler movement since 1967. Furthermore, US tax dollars have long funded this occupation, a fact largely unknown around the world.