The Feb. 26 riot by Jewish settlers in the Palestinian town of Hurrawa has frightened some Israelis so much that it’s even drawing comparisons to Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany in 1938, during which Nazi storm troopers smashed Jewish businesses all over Germany while the authorities looked on. “The government needs to decide if it acts as a sovereign in the [occupied Palestinian] territories, if it is determined to impose law and order on Arabs and Jews alike, or if it serves as a fig leaf for the hilltop youth,” wrote Nahum Barnea for the major Israeli news outlet Ynet, referring to the radical settler group.
While Israeli settlers have regularly committed attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, the Feb. 26 attacks were “almost unprecedented,” warned Barnea. Rioting settlers feel “immune to the law. Fear of the state does not apply to them,” said Barnea. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir “observe the rioters in Huwwara and probably remember themselves: when they were their age, they behaved like them.”
The Times of Israel reports today that Israelis had donated nearly $300,000 to a fund on behalf of the Palestinians whose homes were destroyed in the riots. Labor Party member Yaya Fink, who launched the online fundraising drive, said in an interview that his original goal was to raise $27,275 but by 6 a.m. Feb. 28, Israelis had donated $291,015.
