Joshua Leifer in Haaretz: ‘On paper, the settlement security-squad leaders are civilians (…) with army approval and coordination (…) In practice, however, some settlement security squads have become part of the quasi-autonomous network of settler vigilante violence.’

And: ‘The settlers’ display of force in Tel Aviv comes against the backdrop of spiraling violence in the West Bank and near daily attacks on Palestinian civilians and villages, as well as on Israeli and foreign activists.’

Also: ‘For more than three decades, the radical right has threatened violence to defend its goal of occupying Greater Israel. At times it has made good on that threat, as in the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. One of the ominous signs of the times is that, as in the mid-90s, a desperate and radicalized settler movement is brandishing its arms within Israel.’

The mid-90s were foreplay compared to what’s happening now.

(a sf 2269)