Pray for Peace, People Everywhere.

By Patrick Kingsley Reporting from Jerusalem  June 21, 2023 Updated 4:31 p.m. ET 

Israeli extremists caused widespread damage in a wave of attacks on Palestinian towns that lasted from Tuesday night until Wednesday night in revenge for the killing of four Israelis by Palestinian gunmen outside a nearby settlement in the territory.  

Scores of Israeli arsonists entered the Palestinian communities closest to the site of the shooting, setting fires that damaged dozens of cars, buildings and farmland, and spurring confrontations with Palestinian villagers. At least one Palestinian was shot and killed, and 12 others were injured, some of them in clashes with the Israeli security forces, according to the Palestinian health ministry.  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the settler attacks unacceptable, saying: “The State of Israel is a state of law. The citizens of Israel are all obligated to respect the law.”

But Mr. Netanyahu also attempted to assuage hard-line allies in his far-right government by announcing that he would immediately advance plans to build 1,000 new homes in Eli, the settlement in the West Bank close to the attack on Tuesday by Palestinian gunmen.  Mr. Netanyahu said the decision, which will require further government approvals before construction begins, was a direct response to the attack.

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Peoples just get in a rut, so addicted to their routine. We had a next-door neighbor, Nick -- religiously mowed his lawn every third day, whether it needed it or not...  Never used his judgment, and adjusted for seasonal conditions.  Israel reminds me of that.  A drought-plagued land, yet they insist on continually mowing the lawn.  Eventually, our neighbor's actions killed off his whole lawn, everything that was green and growing and good, full of life.  He just had to be "in control" of Nature like that.  Didn't realize what he was doing;  couldn't let it be.  Burned it all up in his pursuit of perfection, while our yard -- trampled with kids continually playing their games and interspersed with a variety of grasses, violet flowers and dandelion patches here and there -- was green and alive with life.  It looked just as pretty as his -- ours was lush and loved too;  he simply couldn't see it because his vision of that perfect plot of front lawn was so fixed in his mind...

Pity.

ADDED:    I know nobody wants to hear comparables, but what the Israeli extremists are doing sounds a lot like how the Whites in power in the American South used to go into black towns spreading justice liberally after "one of theirs" criminalized one of the ImportantPeople in Power.  Teach 'em all a lesson...

It rarely ends well, but it's worth watching.  So much of what happens first in Israel -- the pre-emptive wars; the crackdowns -- is later adopted by us, the American ally following Israel's lead.  You wish the relationship were reversed -- with Americans teaching Israelis a thing or two about Constitutional democracy in a pluralistic secular land, but they are not there yet.  The civil war between the religious extremists and the people trying to determine their nation's destiny has not yet been fought in Israel for self determination:  to decide what kind of democracy they will be in time, when the U.S. taxpayers are unable to provide a robust military defense through subsidized spending to build up the country's protections in the region.