Olmert Says Attack on Settlement Critic Threatens Democracy
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Jerusalem — Prime Minister Olmert blamed an attack on an outspoken critic of Jewish settlement in the West Bank on what may be a newly formed Jewish underground and said the violence threatened the country’s democracy.
“An evil wind of extremism, hatred, violence, malice, of unlawfulness, of lack of restraint, of disregard for the state has swept through certain sectors of the Israeli society and is threatening Israeli democracy,” Mr. Olmert told his Cabinet yesterday.
Police have not yet found the unknown assailants who threw a pipe bomb at Zeev Sternhall, who won the Israel Prize for political science this year, injuring him as he locked up his home on September 24.
Violence between opposing Jewish political groups is not unknown in Israel. Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by Yigal Amir, who sought to stop him from handing over land for peace to the Palestinian Arabs. Peace activist Emil Grunzweig was killed in 1983 when a Jewish radical lobbed a grenade at demonstrators rallying against Israel’s war in Lebanon.
