Sternhall: War on 'Settlers'

Israeli Prize winner Prof. Zev Sternhall, who was slightly injured in a pipe bomb blast last week, said Jewish residents in Judea and <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Samaria are "anti-Zionists" in an interview published by the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz. Whoever supports the occupation, i.e. a bi-national state, is no Zionist," he said in an interview. "This could also be said of politicians who drag their feet in negotiations intended to bring about a two-state solution for two nations."<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

He maintained that "politicians must declare war on the extreme right and occupation; that is the swamp where those mosquitoes breed. Otherwise they won't even be a footnote in history."

Politicians must declare war on the extreme right and occupation; that is the swamp where those mosquitoes breed.

In an interview with the same newspaper in 2001, where he is also a contributing columnist, Prof. Sternhall stated, "The Palestinians would be wise to concentrate their struggle against the settlements, avoid harming women and children and strictly refrain from firing on Gilo, Nahal Oz or Sderot; it would also be smart to stop planting bombs to the west of the Green Line.

"By adopting such an approach, the Palestinians would be sketching the profile of a solution that is the only inevitable one: The amended Green Line will be an international border and territory."

He also called for an international force in the Palestinian Authority (PA) because the Israeli "hypocritical government has little regard for the life of a non-Jew."

The pipe bomb explosion has spawned a tirade of calls to investigate extreme nationalists. And Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) to investigate what he called a new "Jewish underground."