Concluding an article about the current situation in Hebron, Ron Ben-Yishai writes,

These are difficult days for the Israeli government, for security forces, and also for the established leaderships of the settlers in Judea and Samaria. If they are unable, through cooperation, to contain the riots and curb them, not only will Israeli democracy be undermined; the whole State of Israel could end up facing chaos and possibly, heaven forbid, a civil war.

He’s right about the difficult days but dead wrong about the solution he proposes. The established leaderships of the settler movement on the West Bank are not leaders of a foreign country or an alternative source of law and legitimacy. They are Israeli citizens and their duty is to uphold the authority and legitimacy of the Israeli state. There’s no reason to ask them to use whatever scant influence they might have to calm the religiofascists of Hebron. It’s no more than their basic civic duty to do so and if they aren’t doing it already then they are part of the problem and not the solution.

Ben-Yishai goes on to express concern about the situation in Hebron spreading to take hold of the entire country and about a possible slide towards civil war. That fear seems exaggerated, for the moment. The religiofascists still lack the means to take on the state and don’t enjoy a critical mass of political support that would allow them to acquire such means. That’s the situation now; there’s no guarantee it will always be so.

The way out of this situation is not to wait until the nation is on the road to civil war before crushing the fascist hard core of the settler movement. The fact that the state has up to now tolerated and encouraged its crimes and impudence is all the greater reason for it to act. The monster is showing signs of getting out of control.

As it appears that judges willing to face up to the settlers are in short supply, administrative detention will have to be used on as wide a scale as necessary to break the arrogance of the Hebron settler leaders. Any settler who raises his hand against a member of the security forces or damages their equipment must be put behind bars too. When the authorities have gained control of the present situation, all the settlers must be removed from Hebron. That should be done not as a down payment on a future deal with the Palestinians, but to assert the state’s authority, to show that it can’t be goaded with impunity and to show to those watching both at home and abroad that the state of Israel continues to be a state, in the full sense of that term.

Note that I am leaving aside all consideration of the tremendous injustices being done to Palestinians in Hebron. The religiofascist element of the settler movement has to be broken, in the first instance, for the sake of Israel and its continued existence as a state of laws and democratic institutions.