Ben-Dror Yemini is not one of those knee-jerk journalists who will always stay one side of the political divide in Israel. That's why he's always a good read. He's unpredictable.
So here, in Maariv, he attacks the leaders of the settler movement for allowing the toxic Youth of the Hills movement to get out of hand.
It seems that the commander of the West Bank brigade, Brigadier Nitzan Alon, has suggested that soldiers with political agendas, from either the right or left, not be allowed to take part in the removal of settlements or the prevention of the establishment of other blots on the landscape.
He did so in order to save these soldiers, from Israel's people's army (for that is what the IDF is), from facing military discipline. A good and noble move, you might say.
But this is not enough for the far right. He has been called "Eichmann" and other of their favourite epithets. Have you noticed, by the way, that anyone who disagrees with the settlers is a Nazi, even high-ranking Israeli officers who were sent to defend them.
But I digress.
In an interview with the settlers' pirate radio station, Arutz 7, he said also that the actions of the "Price Tag" group had caused terror attacks [against Jews]. The far right took this to mean that the brigadier was blaming the murder of the Fogel family on the Jewish hooligans [in a cause and effect sort of way]. He was not. As he made clear himself, "there are terrorists and murderers who don't need an excuse".
What he was clear about was that there was a need for rabbis and settler leaders to condemn clearly these Price Tag Hooligans (Yemini's word). Silence, however, came from the rabbis' and settler leaders' mouths. Acquiescence is appeasement is agreement.
Toxicity's "Price Tag"
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