That, of course, is the tragedy of the new Zionism. A self-serving, political movement that acts as brutally to its neighbours as in any pogrom of the late nineteenth century. The human condition that allows and even relishes torture and killing, is not the prerogative of non-Jews.

We also have our sadists and our torturers, convinced that they act with God's blessing and are immune to both the law and to criticism ... How sad is that. How perverse. How inhuman.

Bernard:

I think you need to correct the link to Mr. Shulman's important report of what is characterized as a pogrom. Your link goes to a November 30th report in your blog.

For anyone interested, here are related links from Haaretz, two from YNET, and one from the Jerusalem Post, each reporting the arrest and detention of four Bat Ayin settlers, two of whom were off-duty IDF soldiers who apparently fired their weapons. There is no reference, however, to the four Palestinians whom Mr. Shulman reports have been killed in recent days. I also link to a press release from the Palestine Center for Human Rights which makes a brief and extremely disturbing reference to settler and IDF actions taken agains Um Safa residents (but which precedes yesterday's activities):

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082554.html

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3709604,00.html

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3709517,00.html

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710840344&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/PSLG-7RKHNQ?OpenDocument

I have not linked to settler accounts in Arutz Sheva and elsewhere. They are there for anyone interested as well.

First. I, too, have heard lots of stories about stetls and pogroms. Aside from a political assissination by a Jewish retard in Hitler's time I never heard of Jews taking axes to their neighbors.

Second. Harry Truman, at the time he recognized the Jewish state, predicted this sort of behavior. Bad behavior, he said, was typical of the newly powerful, the newly rich, especially if they had suffered a lot prior to their good fortune. I'm sure psycho-babblers have a lot to say on the subject.

Third. It's hardly the Jews alone who are guilty. Try Kashmir, a sensationally beautiful place. Or America during the conquest. Or India when the Muslims first came down from the mountains.
By neglecting to mention historical and current parallels people like Avishai encourage the worst anti-semites to vent their hatred, to seek the destruction of the Jewish state. I would give you far more credence, Avishai, if you spoke out and acted everywhere this behavior occurred. But you don't, except in a token sort of way. And pour out excuses about your failure to do so.

Fourth. When context is considered, you offer no realistic solution. You just guilt-monger, complain, and spew hatred.

Repeating that stuff about deported and hung, but neglecting to mention context (I was - repeatedly - being accused of disloyalty and cowardice for supporting Israel...so I responded with a similar accusation). Typical.
You could do much better, you know. Somewhere I said that the Left doesn't even rise to the level of ordinary garbage, that it was toxic waste. I said it with much less provocation.

Your second paragraph is no better. It's a very selective response, basically the pathetic 1948 defense so popular on the Left. To wit; the world has moved on to better places - except for the evil Joos.
So the Indians can vote, run casinos, get free govt. health care, move without restraint. G-O-O-D-Y! That more than makes up for the loss of their country. Are you as generous in characterizing the fate of Israeli Arabs who have similar benefits?

No. I can't provide realistic solutions. No one can. That's the whole point of my comments. The Jews are doing what is necessary to defend their state. What's necessary is often very cruel. Your solution is to dismantle their state.

Perhaps you would also like to dismantle the Indian state, or at least its Hindu dominance. I'll bet many here would encourage serious consideration. But dismantle the Muslim states? Suggest that Islam may be the source of much of the troubles? Horrors! Never! That would be cultural elitism! We're lefties. We speak truth to power. We criticize our own culture, which is full of fault, and the source of all the worlds problems. Consider the possibility that other cultures are worse, even much, much worse than our own? Heresy!

When will we stop all the silly hand-wringing and face the difficult truth that ethnocracy inevitably leads to the kind of ethnic violence and persistant injustice we see in Israel and its occupied territories? Bus trips to Hebron won't help anything. Fighting an inherently unjust system of government is what is required. Until some of our liberal Jewish commentators have the courage to stand up and admit that ethnocracy in Israel can be no more just than ethnocracy in Alabama or South Africa, nothing will ever change. Please, if you don't have the courage to address the real problem, stop all the self-absorbed prattle. It's becoming not only tiresome, but embarassing. Enough is enough.

"And now it turns out--who would believe it?--that there are Jews who also know how to carry out pogroms."

That statement is an obscenity. Israel was founded on expulsion and pogroms, and the authors here know it. Is this the David Shulman who wrote the afterword for Yizhar?