The Decline and Fall of Shin Bet
Israel’s premier counterterror force has become an accomplice to West Bank settler crimes
In 1881, members of a Russian revolutionary socialist organization calling itself The People’s Will (Narodnaya Volya) assassinated Tsar Alexander II. The monarchy, aiming to divert public attention from the populist group, employed its secret police, the Okhrana, and Russia’s antisemitic press, to stir up hatred against the Jews. Incited by the slogan, “Beat the Jews and save Russia,” and later, “God is with us,” pogroms broke out across Russia.
That history comes to mind with the behavior of some Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In a cruel irony, their hatred toward Palestinians of all kinds is reminiscent of those days. The thugs, murderers, arsonists, and looters are Jews, who also believe that God is with them.
The organization that was supposed to act with full force against such Jewish terrorism is Israel’s domestic counterterrorism service, the Shin Bet, together with the army and the police. But today, as in Russia 145 years ago, the authorities have not only turned a blind eye to the violence, some have secretly encouraged it.
