Israel is often touted as the Middle East’s most liberal democracy but two incidents in the last couple of days has shined a light on the fomentation of right wing radicals inside the country.
On Thursday a member of the ultra-conservative Orthodox community stabbed six people during a gay pride parade in Jerusalem. Yishai Shlissel, the attacker, had been released from prison three weeks earlier after serving 10 years for a similar incident at the 2005 parade.
Even more harrowing, an 18 month old infant died in an arson attack early Friday morning when Israeli settlers allegedly threw firebombs at two houses in Douma, in the West Bank.
Saad and Riham Dawabasha and their 4-year-old son Ahmad were critically wounded and transferred to a hospital in Israel. Their son and brother Ali Saad Dawabasha died in the fire.
“This is the consequence of a culture of hate funded and incentivized by the Israeli government and the impunity granted by the international community,” Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator said in a statement, according to the New York Times. “We call upon the international community to end its policy of empty statements and to finally do something to protect Palestinians. Exercising the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including their protection and ending the occupation, is an international responsibility.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since released statements condemning both attacks.
Here’s a statement released from his Twitter account on the settler attack:
I am shocked by the murder of Ali Dawabshe. This is a reprehensible and horrific act of terrorism in every respect. pic.twitter.com/m9JXsk7YHg
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) July 31, 2015
And here he is addressing the stabbings in Jerusalem:
In Israel, everyone, including the LGBT community, has the right to live in peace, and we will defend that right. pic.twitter.com/H2fex3edfC
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) July 30, 2015
But condemnations aside, Netanyahu’s right wing government has been criticized by voices in Israel for ignoring a rise of internal radical elements. Following his release from prison, Shlissel had posted on numerous ultra-Orthodox online forums and sent out messages over WhatsApp groups that showed his intent to attack marchers at the parade, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Sabi Shajylan, an antiquities dealer who attended a solidarity rally in Tel Aviv for the six stabbed parade attendees, told WSJ: “this attack is a direct consequence [of] the ongoing incitement in the ultra-Orthodox communities. It’s the fruit of that tree.”
On the topic of the settler attack, critics have long accused the Israeli government of ignoring the problem.
“There is not enough pressure from the prime minister, the defence minister, the interior minister to prevent this,” Gadi Zohar, a former senior Israeli army commander in the occupied West Bank, told the Independent earlier this year. Israeli human rights organization, Yesh Din, recently released a report that said 92.6 percent of complaints that Palestinians lodge to the Israeli police go without charges being filed.
The murder in the West Bank is being labelled by international media as a “price tag” attack — “a term used by radical Israeli settlers to denote reprisal against Palestinians in response to moves by the Israeli government to evacuate illegal West Bank outposts,” according to CNN.
Vice News reported from the West Bank last year on price tag attacks.
The Obama administration has repeatedly warned Israel about expanding settlements, saying they are not conducive to peace. “I’ve been clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leadership that … we do not consider continued settlement activity to be constructive, to be appropriate, to be something that can advance the cause of peace,” Obama said in 2013.