Our intern Benjamin Kasdan wrote the following piece about a disturbing experience, after helping us organize an event in Washington:

As I was leaving an event on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sponsored by Americans for Peace Now earlier this month, an elderly man who noticed that I was carrying an APN sign approached me and asked me if I worked with APN. When I responded that I did, he called me a self-hating Jew, and told me that I should be ashamed of myself.

The encounter shocked me and has been troubling me ever since. Has our community really become that intolerant?

While Israelis and their friends abroad are preparing commemorative events to mark the fifteenth anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's 1995 assassination, the settlers' chief news site, Arutz Sheva (Channel 7) has come up with its own way of commemorating Rabin. The right wing site is launching a bizarre contest of conspiracy theories regarding the assassination. Readers are urged to send in their wildest theories about who is responsible for Rabin's murder. Arutz Sheva promises to publish the "most interesting" theories.

Last night, extremists further escalated the settlers' campaign to terrorize Palestinians and deter Israel's law enforcement authorities from protecting the rule of law in the West Bank. After desecrating and vandalizing mosques in the West Bank, these hooligans are now attacking loyal Israeli Muslim citizens.

A day after another West Bank mosque went up in flames again, Israeli Television (Channel One) today reported that law enforcement authorities have zeroed in on the settlers who torched another mosque, in the West Bank village of Yasouf, in December 2009.

According to the report, the Shin-Bet and the Police know who the terrorists are, but they have not been arrested yet because of intelligence considerations - whatever that means.

Look at this Israeli soldier.

He was injured yesterday in the West Bank.

Not by Palestinians but by Israeli setters.

Settlers threw rocks and glass paint canisters at the soldiers. One of these canisters hit this Border Police officer in the face and bloodied his nose. Settlers also punctured IDF vehicles and beat soldiers.

Why did the settlers attack the troops?

Because the Israeli soldiers were attempting to protect West Bank Palestinians from settlers' rampaging, which recently has become routine.

In recent weeks, settlers from Yitzhar repeatedly rampaged in neighboring Palestinian villages, vandalized property, desecrated a mosque and terrorized Palestinian civilians. They also repeatedly attacked Israeli soldiers who tried to protect Palestinians in the neighboring villages.

It's time for Israel's authorities and for the Israeli public to realize who they are dealing with and how far these people are willing to go to undermine any chance for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Their violence is not mere hooliganism of teenage thugs. It is a calculated strategy - they call it "Price Tag" - to deter the Israeli authorities from enforcing the law to curb illegal settlement construction. Their strategy is aimed at fomenting counter-violence among Palestinians in order to distract the Israeli authorities from the settlers' actions, and to sow the kind of chaos and confusion that would undermine Israeli-Palestinian peace.

It is time for friends of Israel worldwide to condemn the settlers' provocations and to resolve to not let them succeed.
 

Residents of east Jerusalem neighborhood celebrate holiday with songs of praise for Cave of Patriarchs massacre. Left-wing activists plan protest

As Americans have learned from the Daily Show, sometimes satire can be the best way to take the political temperature of a country.

Last month, Eretz Nehederet -- a prime-time satire show broadcast by Israel Television Channel Two -- produced a series of skits about settlers holding Israel's defense forces hostage.

Peace Now and APN very seldom issue joint statements. We took this unusual step today to react to the shocking attacks on the New Israel Fund. These attacks include newspaper and internet ads that resemble images from the darkest times in Jewish history.

The attack on NIF concerns all progressive Israelis and their supporters in the United States.

Here is the text of the press release.

By Haaretz Editorial

There is no way to describe the West Bank settlers' attack on the Palestinian village of Bitilu but as a well-planned terror attack. The settlers' "military" organization and violent resistance to the cabinet decision to destroy the illegal outpost of Givat Menachem, as described by Chaim Levinson in Haaretz yesterday, are no different from the activities of other terrorist organizations. This includes the incitement, ranting and raving preceding the act of vengeance on Bitilu, the attempt to set a house on fire, the injuring of villagers with stones, and the threat to continue these violent tactics.