Price tag attack policy
The price tag attack policy, also sometimes referred to as mutual responsibility, is the name originally given to the attacks and acts of vandalism committed primarily in the occupied West Bank by extremist Israeli settler youths against Palestinian Arabs, and to a lesser extent, against left-wing Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Christians, and Israeli security forces. The youths officially claim that the acts are committed to "exact a price from local Palestinians or from the Israeli security forces for any action taken against their settlement enterprise".
B'Tselem has documented many acts of this kind, which have included violent attacks carried out against random Palestinian civilians, burning of mosques and fields, stone throwing, uprooting trees, and incursions into Palestinian villages and land. These actions come as retaliation for Palestinian acts of violence against settlers, or decisions by the Israeli government to curb Jewish construction in the West Bank, where 80% of the attacks take place, while some 10–15% take place in the area of Jerusalem. Such vandalism also embraces damaging the property, or injuring members of the Israel Police and the Israel Defense Forces, and defacing the homes of left-wing activists.
The Israel Security Agency, known as Shin Bet, estimates of the extent of the perpetrator group vary: one figure calculates that from several hundred to about 3,000 people implement the price tag policy, while a recent analysis sets the figure at a few dozen individuals, organized in small close-knit and well-organised cells and backed by a few hundred right-wing activists. Yizhar Hess, comparing hate crimes against Arabs in Israel and antisemitic acts against Jews in France, notes that incidents of price tag attacks are proportionately higher, and argues that price tag acts are Israel's antisemitism.
The roots of the price tag policy were traced to the August 2005 dismantling of settlements in the Gaza Strip as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan. Ever since then, extreme right wing settlers have sought to establish a "balance of terror", in which every state action aimed at them generates an immediate violent reaction. The definition of such acts as terroristic, however, is the subject of considerable political controversy in Israel.
The "price tag" concept and violence have been publicly rejected by Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have demanded that those responsible be brought to justice. Cabinet member Benny Begin stated: "These people are scoundrels, but we have not been terribly successful in catching them." Many people across the political spectrum in Israel have denounced such attacks and some have made efforts to redress the harm. The attacks are widely reported in the Arab media, and have been strongly condemned by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The settler leadership have "fiercely condemned" the price tag policy, and the vast majority of Yesha rabbis have expressed their reservations about it. According to Shin Bet, the vast majority of the settlers also reject such actions.
Terminology
The acts also referred to as "tactic", "strategy", "doctrine", "campaign", or "principle". The term "price tag attack" now extends to acts of vandalism, and especially to acts of anti-Arab vandalism, suspected to be the work of lone individuals, against the Israeli army and security services, as well as against Christian and Muslim places of worship, and also against left-wing institutions that criticize settlers. In May 2014, Shin Bet said the price-tag hate crimes were the handiwork of about 100 individuals mainly hailing from the Yitzhar settlement and hilltop outposts, and were inspired by the ideas of rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh.One objection to the use of the term is that it dehumanizes Palestinians. Ron Ben-Tovim argues that it is a supermarket label used as a euphemism for violent acts aimed to instill terror into the hearts of Palestinians, applied to acts against Palestinians by Jews, whereas it is standard in Israeli usage to brand all acts perpetrated by Palestinians against Israeli Jews as terrorism. "Cutting off the head of the terror snake" and "tentacles of terror" are commonly used metaphors. To use a special term, "price tag" for acts of violence against Palestinians is to reduce the terror to a message by settlers to their government, and ignore the victim.
The price-tag campaign includes attacks on Palestinian villages and property by Israeli settlers as retaliation for attacks on Israeli targets and for government demolition of structures at West Bank settlements and the removal of outposts which are variously described as being either unauthorised or illegal, and in recent years, dozens of such attacks have targeted Christian sites and the Christian community in Jerusalem. They generally follow actions by Israeli authorities that are perceived as harming the settlement enterprise, or follow Palestinian violence against settlers.
History of the price tag policy
According to the military correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz Amos Harel, the roots of the policy go back to Ariel Sharon's policy of disengagement from Gaza in August 2005 and the demolition in 2006 of the illegal settlement at Amona. The expression is occasionally used for acts that took place before this date, to denote a retributive act. Gideon Levy, for example, describes the settlement of Mitzpe Yair, established in 1998 after the murder of settler Yair Har-Sinai, as "an early 'price tag' operation – an act of retribution for some incident." The term has also been used to describe Israeli retaliative policy against Palestinians, and on behalf of the settler enterprise, by describing PM Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to permit Jews to move into a contested property, Machpela House, in response to the shooting of an Israeli border policeman near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.The Kahane Chai member and IDF soldier Eden Natan-Zada's gunning down of Israeli Arabs on a bus in the town of Shfar'am, in which four Arabs were killed and twenty-two were wounded, took place on 4 August 2005, just before the Gaza evacuation. It has been interpreted as a possible price-tag assault aimed at provoking riots that would make the IDF too busy to execute the evacuation on the Gaza Strip. Later that same year, Asher Weisgan of the Shiloh settlement killed four Palestinians in a similar terror attack perpetrated as a "protest" at the withdrawal from Amona.
According to Harel, since the Gaza and Amona withdrawals:
the extreme right has sought to establish a 'balance of terror', in which every state action aimed at them – from demolishing a caravan in an outpost to restricting the movements of those suspected of harassing Palestinian olive harvesters – generates an immediate, violent reaction.
In July 2008, after the evacuation of a bus from the Israeli outpost of Adei Ad, followed by clashes between settler groups with Palestinians and the IDF, settler Itay Zar from the Israeli outpost of Havat Gilad alluded to the price-tag policy in stating: "Whenever an evacuation is carried out – whether it is a bus, a trailer or a small outpost – we will respond."
In the wake of the dismantlement of Noam Federman's farm outside Hebron in October 2008, opponents of the evacuation called for revenge attacks against the security forces, telling soldiers "you should all be defeated by your enemies, you should all become Gilad Shalit, you should all be killed, you should all be slaughtered, because that's what you deserve", and "set a price tag" on the event by stoning soldiers and local Palestinians, wounding two Israel Border Police officers, vandalizing cars, and destroying graves in a Muslim graveyard.
Price tag operations were originally envisaged as mobilizing actions by settlers throughout the West Bank – retaliating in the north when outposts in the south were threatened with dismantlement, and "exacting a price" in the south when outposts risked removal in the north. However, by 2009, though considerable damage was wrought to Palestinian property and persons, a coordinated north–south campaign still hadn't been realized. Price tag attacks could, furthermore, also be triggered purely on the basis of an announcement of government measures or by rumors of an imminent evacuation.
The acts of random violence generally follow actions by Israeli authorities that are perceived as harming the settlement enterprise, or follow Palestinian violence against settlers. "Price tag" acts include demonstrations, blocking of roads, clashes with Israeli security forces and even attacks against Israeli security forces personnel. Usually, however, the term refers to actions carried out by radical right-wing Israeli activists against Palestinians and their property. These include throwing stones at Palestinian cars, the torching of Palestinian fields and orchards, as well as the destruction and uprooting of trees belonging to Palestinians.
According to Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din, "The goal is to create a price for each evacuation, causing the Israeli authorities to think twice about carrying them out."
Towards the end of 2009, following an Israeli government decision to freeze any Israeli construction in the West Bank for a period of 10 months, several suspicious attacks were carried out in the West Bank, including the arson of a mosque in the Palestinian town of Yasuf, during which graffiti was sprayed on a building saying "Prepare for the price tag". The Shin Bet estimates of the extent of the perpetrator group vary: one figure calculates that from several hundred to about 3,000 people implement the price tag policy, while a recent analysis sets the figure at a few dozen individuals backed a few hundred right-wing activists. The vast majority of the settlers reject such actions, Shin Bet officials say. The perpetrators are organized in small close-knit and well-organised cells.
A 2009 summary report published by the Israel Police stated that during 2009 there was a decline in these types of attacks. According to a report of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs published in November 2009, if Israel were to begin evacuating settlements in the West Bank, 248,700 Palestinians living in 83 communities would be exposed to this policy, of which 22 communities with 75,900 inhabitants would be at high risk.
According to Yesh Din, which monitored a selection of incidents over 4 years, Israel Police did not file a single indictment following 69 cases that included price tag operations, where thousands of olive trees were burnt down between 2005 and 2009.
In an article published in May 2010, Zar stated that these actions represent a legitimate struggle which includes mainly the blocking of intersections and roads in order to disrupt the regular operations of Israeli security forces, preventing them from demolishing settler houses. Zar referred to the criminal activity involved in these actions as "marginal and uncontrolled acts".
According to Reuters, there was a 57% upswing in such attacks in the first seven months of 2011. No charges had yet been brought against suspects in price tag incidents.
A September 2011 article in The Economist suggested that one motive for these attacks might be to instigate violent Palestinian reaction, because the settlers are better-armed and believe that they could defeat the Palestinians.
In September 2011 the Shin Beit advised the government to withhold funding from one yeshiva, Od Yosef Chai in the settlement of Yitzhar, on the basis of intelligence reports that its rabbis encourage students to attack Arabs, including 'price tag' assaults.
Daniel Byman and Natan Sachs, writing for the Council on Foreign Relations's in-house journal Foreign Affairs, state that arson and the destruction of trees do not belong in the same category and aren't morally equivalent to suicide bombing though they, as well as Israeli politicians such as Moshe Ya'alon, define these acts of vandalism as a form of terrorism.
Price tag attacks have been made on Christian holy sites. In response to one on the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion early in October 2012, Rabbi Gilad Kariv commented:"This price tag epidemic threatens to become a routine part of Israeli public life, causing moral, social and international damage. Law enforcement, which has failed to deal with the phenomenon, must make this a much higher priority than it has until now."
In December 2012, two yarmulke-clad youths, one a candidate for the Shin Bet security service, handed out flyers, promoting price-tag attacks against Palestinians, at an IDF induction centre in Tel Hashomer. The IDF issued a statement condemning political propaganda within the army, the centre was notified and the distribution of flyers stopped.
In June 2013, according to Zehava Gal-On, the Israeli Cabinet was pressured, despite a recommendation by the Attorney-General to the contrary, to define perpetrators of such attacks as members of "forbidden organizations" as opposed to "terror groups". The implications are significant, in that belonging to the latter carries prison sentences of up to 20 years, whereas "forbidden organizations" only risk confiscation of their property, and under the definition, arrested members of price tag activist groups can avoid criminal prosecution.
Settlers have used the term to describe Israeli government operations that demolish the illegal structures they have built.