Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Yuval Diskin put "wild settlers" in their crosshairs Sunday and vowed an all-out war following further violence between police and supporters of a Jewish presence in all of Judea and Samaria.
Prime Minister Olmert emphasized to the Cabinet, "The overwhelming majority of residents in Judea and Samaria live there legally. They are law-abiding citizens. They love both the people and the land."
But he said that the "wild people" are "not [a] small group" who threaten law and order. The Prime Minister insisted there will be no tolerance of the recent "attacks on policemen." The activists who were involved in the violence at the destroyed family home of Noam and Elisheva Federman at Kiryat Arba-Hevron have accused the police of violently beating a 10-year-old child who asked to enter the Federman property.
However, political leaders and media have emphasized the attacks against the policemen, many of whom were not Jewish and who were dressed in black-clad uniforms in the initial destruction a week ago Saturday night, bringing back heart-wrenching memories of the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif three years ago.
Prime Minister Olmert vowed to cut off funds to unauthorized communities, commonly known as illegal outposts, and also ordered an examination of "the involvement of public employees in incitement."
At the same time, Israel Security Agency chief Yuval Diskin raised the specter of the assassination Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin ands repeated charges made a number of times: unnamed extremists are planning to further killings.
With the anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin a week away, Diskin repeated previous statements that extremists may try to kill political leaders again. "The Shin Bet has spotted among right-wing extremists the readiness to use firearms in order to halt political proceedings and harm leaders," he asserted.
Vice Prime Minister Chaim Ramon (Kadima) also alleged that "there is concrete intelligence information" concerning alleged extremists, but, as in the past, there was no mention of any pending charges.
Activists trying to rebuild the destroyed community of Homesh in northern Samaria accused the government of "character assassination "against residents of Judea and Samaria" as part of a "cynical attempt to gag half of the public for the sake of political profit towards the elections."
Diskin warned two years ago that violent opposition to the government's policies was growing and at the time faulted the government for its policies of promoting unilateral withdrawals similar to those in the Gaza and northern Samaria regions in 2005.
Speaking before the last general elections, he stated, "Unfortunately, the Israeli political system is in an election campaign…. As a result, the treatment of this fissure [in society] is not good. And there are repercussions for insufficient treatment for cracks so deep that in the end [they] return to me as head of the ISA."
He made the comments after police violence in the demolition of nine homes at Amona, where several policemen later were investigated and charged with brutality that nearly killed one youth and wounded two Knesset Members.
Diskin also commented at the time, "The political echelon can decide what it wants. But from a security point of view I am against giving land to the Palestinians, even that territory that is [already] under their control, unless we know that there is a Palestinian source that assumes power and imposes order."
However, shortly after the 2006 elections, he told the Olmert Cabinet, "It was always comfortable for us to say 'these [Amona demonstrators] are extremists,’ but they are no longer the extremists. They have become the center of the settler public. We must isolate them.