West Bank Firebombing Reignites Old Hatreds in Israel

The Australian

15 August 2015

Some acts are beyond the pale, and the only bright spot in this dark episode has been the universal condemnation heaped on the fanatics responsible for torching the Dawabshas’ house in Duma, a dusty village outside the Palestinian city of Nablus, on July 31.

No one seriously disputes that the arson was carried out by Jewish settlers, possibly as a “price tag” revenge attack over an Israeli government move earlier that week to demolish two buildings in the West Bank settlement of Beit El.

Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called it for what it was — an act of terrorism — and the hardliners in the settler movement and the far Right of Israeli politics echoed him or bit their tongues.

… James Dorsey, a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, says a fan group supporting Kach stirred up racial trouble during a Europa League soccer match in Belgium last month between Israeli club Beitar Jerusalem and home side Sporting Charleroi, a “wake-up call” for Israel that was amplified by the Duma outrage.

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