Friday, Jul 4, 2008
With the crisis simmering and the death toll mounting in Israel, vigilante movements are brewing among Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Nov 27, 2000 | Twice a week since the beginning of the current Palestinian uprising, Shifra Hoffman, a grandmother in her 60s, has practiced firing her pistol at Combat, a shooting range in Jerusalem.
Wearing dangling Star of David earrings under a traditional Jewish headscarf, Hoffman seems frustrated on the range today. "I have a quarrel with my own government. It was put in power to protect and safeguard the people," Hoffman says. Instead, "the politicians have stripped the army and tied its hands. What kind of government allows its citizens to be blown up in buses, stabbed and stoned, while continuing to talk about peace?"
So Hoffman, an admirer of the late right-wing extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane -- known for his aggressive anti-Arab stances -- has decided to take the protection of fellow Jews into her own hands. The founder of an organization called Victims of Arab Terror, Hoffman now regularly leads small groups to Combat to train in marksmanship.
Business at Combat has doubled since Palestinian violence erupted in the occupied territories two months ago, as Israeli settlers and concerned citizens have come to purchase high-caliber weapons and refresh their shooting skills. Likewise, the Interior Ministry's Weapon Licensing Department has reported a 50 percent increase in the number of applications during the recent weeks of violence.
Israel is in many ways a nation of arms. In a country of 6 million, there are about 280,000 privately owned guns. In addition, most men under the age of 40 carry a weapon at all times during their one-month annual reserve duty. In the most recent clashes, Palestinians have repeatedly reported killings by trigger-happy settlers, in drive-by incidents and shoot-outs in olive groves, but few independent inquiries have confirmed the circumstances of those deaths.
More than a burgeoning vigilante movement, however, the newfound popularity of pistols reflects a growing sense of impotence and frustration with government policy toward the Palestinians.
"We feel very vulnerable. We have no recourse," says Hoffman. "There will be shooting, we predict, in all neighborhoods." Steve Averbach, Combat's muscular and mustachioed shooting instructor, concurs: "We're all moving targets."
The Palestinian riots started on Sept. 29, a day after the controversial visit of right-wing leader Ariel Sharon to Temple Mount, a Jerusalem shrine held holy by both Muslims and Jews. They first pitted throngs of Palestinian stone-throwers against well-armed Israeli soldiers, but two months into the violence, the clashes have moved toward guerrilla-style warfare, involving bombs, ambushes and greater firepower on both sides. Roughly 280 people have been killed so far, including 33 Israeli Jews.
Wednesday, the day a remote-controlled car bomb blasted through the side of a bus during rush hour, killing two Israeli civilians north of Tel Aviv, about 100,000 people rallied in Jerusalem under the slogan "Let the Israeli Defense Forces win!" That sentiment is shared by many, but also puts the government in a difficult position.
For weeks now Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has been casting about for ways to end the violence, without success. His policy of "restraint" has earned him the scorn of the right and a sharp popularity drop in national polls. At the same time, harsh retaliation to attacks -- like last week's bombardment of the Gaza Strip -- has proven militarily ineffective and even counterproductive.
The dilemma is manifold. Consider just last week's events. On Monday, a roadside bomb hit an Israeli schoolbus carrying the children of settlers in the Gaza Strip, killing two adults and maiming several children. That evening, Israel responded with a massive barrage of rockets on Gaza City fired from helicopters and gunboats. The three-hour bombardment terrorized the city, killed one person and injured dozens, but had no visible deterrent effect.
Indeed, Palestinian snipers shot and killed an Israeli settler in Gaza the very next day, and the rest of the week brought about the deaths of four Israeli soldiers and two Israeli civilians. In addition, Hezbollah, the Islamic guerrillas, detonated a roadside bomb in a contested area near the Lebanese border, killing an Israeli-Arab soldier Sunday. With the kidnapping of three soldiers in early October, it was Hezbollah's second major provocative action along the northern border since Israel withdrew its troops from Southern Lebanon in May -- and it represented a new blow to Israel's deterrence power. Twenty-eight Palestinians were killed that week alone.
Rather than stopping Palestinian snipers and terrorists in their tracks, the Israeli tanks and missiles seem only to fan the flames of rage and revenge. Even worse, Israel's international standing is damaged by the show of massive force.
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