There’s organized Jewish terror in Israel. Its cheerleaders are inside the government

Elisha Yered, a former spokesman for an Otzma Yehudit MK is arrested as one of the suspects in the 19-year-old Palestinian’s murder, 5 August 2023

A Haaretz editorial on 7 August 2023:

After years of denial, a growing number of people both in Israel and worldwide have begun to understand that yes, there is such a thing as Jewish terrorism, and even as Jewish terrorists. Now, all that remains is for them to understand that well-organized Jewish terrorist organizations definitely also exist.

The Shin Bet needs no instruction about the existence of Jewish terrorism. Even before Friday’s murder in the West Bank village of Burqa and Saturday’s revenge attack in Tel Aviv, Shin Bet director Ronen Bar had warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Jewish terror is fanning the flames of Palestinian terror.

IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi said much the same, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant came to Bar’s defense after he was assailed and cursed. Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz also said that “dangerous Jewish nationalist terrorism is developing before our eyes,” while the U.S. State Department condemned the murder in Burqa and dubbed it a “terror attack by Israeli extremist settlers.”

This condemnation was deserved and important; we should indeed call a spade a spade. But we aren’t just talking about an abstract concept (Jewish terrorism), or about lone-wolf terrorists, or about lost “hilltop youth” who are seeking to assuage their boredom by abusing helpless Palestinians. Rather, the Jewish terrorists operate within a broader context that is entrenched, organized and wide-reaching.

Just as there are Jewish terrorists, there are also Jewish terrorist organizations and terror cells in the West Bank. And as is usual for every well-established terrorist organization, this one also has a “political wing.”

The members of this wing back the terrorists and provide a protective legal umbrella. In addition, they work to secure funding for the terrorists, expand their ranks, disseminate the ideology in whose name they fight, “legalize” the lands they steal and pass legislation for their benefit.

It’s no accident that Elisha Yered, a former spokesman for MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit), was one of the people arrested as a suspect in Qosai Mi’tan’s murder. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Son Har-Melech is Yered’s spokesman. He perpetrates while she does the PR. Nor is it any accident that the Kahanist Itamar Ben-Gvir – a man who has been indicted dozens of times and convicted eight times, including convictions for supporting a terrorist organization and inciting to racism – is the national security minister.

On Sunday, Ben-Gvir defended the suspects, saying that “someone who defended himself against stone-throwing ought to get a medal.” It’s also no accident that his chief of staff is Chanamel Dorfman, a former hilltop youth and Shin Bet intelligence target. And it’s no accident that Bezalel Smotrich is a minister in the Defense Ministry who was given control over Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank.

In any properly run country, this criminal organization in the West Bank and all its collaborators would be declared a terrorist organization and dealt with accordingly. But in Netanyahu’s Israel, the terrorists are protected by their collaborators in the Knesset, and some of them even sit in the ministries that are responsible for the country’s security.

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