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Religious edict to expand targeting of Palestinians in "Price Tag" campaign

February 27, 2014 at 9:56 am

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, leader of the Yosef Chai Yeshiva; a religious institution in the Yitzhar settlement, has called for an expansion of the ‘price tag’ campaign – a settler policy of retribution against Palestinians and their property in response to government operations to evacuate settlement enclaves in the West Bank.

Shapira’s statements were made as he participated in a demonstration along side hundreds of other settlers protesting a government decision to demolish the religious institute in Yitzhar. He is quoted as saying “What we need is to implement the policy of actively levying a price; this idea did not emerge from here, from the settlements of Nablus, in vain. As such we will lie in wait for them, and we must include all regions and settlements in the policy of making Palestinians pay the price.”


Shapira went on to add “operations to actively levy a price [on Palestinians] should not be limited to settlements in the West Bank alone, but rather must be carried out in Jerusalem, in Galilee and also in the Negev, and in every region we must implement the policy of actively levying a price. In this way, whenever any [Jewish] person is affected in a particular place, the response must come from everywhere.”

 

Commenting on the situation, Michael Ben-Ari who is a member of the Knesset and the extremist National Unity Party and who was also a participant in the demonstration asserted that it was inconceivable to want to evacuate settlers from the Yitzhar settlement while those from the Ofra settlement remained calm and did not mobilise. He said “It is impossible for us to remain restrained faced by those responsible for the destruction and devastation just as they were responsible for the exodus from Gaza and the South of Lebanon. It is our duty to confront them with all our might.”

It is worth mentioning that the leadership of the central command within the Israeli army does not intend to implement the demolition notice against the Yeshiva in the near future, and are only concerned, at the very least, with issuing it a red notice.

Israeli security services believe that the idea of the ‘price tag campaign’ was pent-up and then emanated from this particular institute and that its rabbis are fully informed of all steps taken by its students in line with the policy, while the Jewish unit within the Shabak believe that Rabbi Shapira is one of the most influential extreme right wing rabbis in the country.