Price tag policy

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Olive tree in the village of Burin which was allegedly vandalized by settlers from Yitzhar

Price tag policy (Hebrew: מדיניות תג מחיר) is, according to B'Tselem, the name given to "acts of random violence aimed at the Palestinian population and Israeli security forces"^[1] by radical Israeli Jewish settlers, who, according to the New York Times, "exact a price from local Palestinians or from the Israeli security forces for any action taken against their settlement enterprise".^[2][3][4] The Wall Street Journal states that the term refers to "a campaign of retribution by fundamentalist Israeli youths against Palestinians in the West Bank".^[5] This campaign includes attacks on Palestinian villages and property by Jewish extremists as retaliation for terrorist 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,^{[6][7][8][7][9][10][11]} or curbs on Israeli construction in the West Bank^[12][13] Recently, Christian churches and possessions in Jerusalem have also become targets for price tag attacks.^[14]

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,^[15] while a recent analysis sets the figure at a few dozen individuals, organized in small close-knit and well-organised cells^[16] and backed by a few hundred right-wing activists.^[17]

The "Price tag" incidents include demonstrations, blocking of roads, vandalism of Palestinian property, violent attacks carried out against random Palestinian civilians, burning of mosques and fields, stone throwing, uprooting trees, making incursions into Palestinian villages and land,^[18] damaging the property, or injuring members of the Israeli police and the Israeli Defense Forces, and defacing the homes of left-wing activists.^[19]

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.^[20]

The "price tag" concept and violence have been publicly rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu^[21] and many people across the political spectrum in Israel have denounced recent incidents, such as arson of a mosque.^[22] Cabinet member Benny Begin stated: “These people are scoundrels, but we have not been terribly successful in catching them.”^[23] According to Reuters, there was a 57% upswing in such attacks in the first seven months of 2011. No charges have yet been brought against suspects in price tag incidents.^[24] The settler leadership have "fiercely condemned" the price tag policy,^[25] and the vast majority of Yesha rabbis have expressed their reservations about it.^[26] According to Shin Bet, the vast majority of the settlers also reject such actions.^[27] 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.^[28]

A Ynet-Gesher survey conducted in March 2011, in the immediate aftermath of the Arab's massacre of the entire Fogel family in the Jewish settlement of Itamar, found that 46% of Jewish Israelis believed the attacks were justified to some extent. In this first poll, a large majority of religious-national and ultra-orthodox respondents revealed their support for these attacks, at rates of 70% and 71%, respectively.^[29]

A later survey, conducted in November 2011 by Tel Aviv University, found that 88% of Jewish Israelis said they were opposed to the "price tag" attacks, with 38% believing the government's response to the attacks to be "too mild" and another 38% finding the response appropriate. The remaining 13% called the state response "too harsh."^[30]

In some cases, Israeli settlers have claimed that Palestinians and leftwing activists staged "price tag" attacks as a means of provocation, in an attempt to tarnish the image of Jewish settlers in the West Bank.^{[31][32][33][34]}

History of the price tag policy

Demolition of the illegal settlement at Amona (shown above), and the disengagement from Gaza were the roots of the policy, according to Haaretz.

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 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, and 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.^[35] Later that same year, Asher Weisgan of the Shiloh settlement murdered 4 Palestinians in a similar protest at the withdrawal from Amona.^[36]

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."^[37]

In July 2008, after the evacuation of a bus from the Israeli outpost of "Adi Ed" (עדי עד), followed by clashes between settler groups with Palestinians and the IDF, settler Itay Zar from the Israeli outpost of "Havat Gilad" referred to the policy as such: "Whenever an evacuation is carried out – whether it is a bus, a trailer or a small outpost – we will respond."^[38] In an article published in May 2010, Zar explained that this is 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."^[39] 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 (kidnapped soldier) 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 2 border poliemen, vandalizing cars, and destroying graves in a Muslim graveyard.^[40]

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 realised. Price attacks could, furthermore, also be triggered purely on the basis of an announcement of government measures or by rumours of an imminent evacuation.^[41]

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,^[42] clashes with Israeli security forces and even attacks against Israeli security forces personnel. Usually, however, the term refers to carried out by radical right-winged 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."^[43] 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.^[44]

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,^[45] including the suspected 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,^[46] while a recent analysis sets the figure at a few dozen individuals backed a few hundred right-wing activists.^[17] The vast majority of the settlers reject such actions, Shin Bet officials say. They are organized in small close-knit and well-organised cells.^[16]

A 2009 summary report published by the Israeli police stated that during 2009 there was a decline in these types of attacks.^[47] According to a report of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) 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.^[48]

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.^[49][50]

Allegations of staged price tag attacks

Settlers have at times claimed that Palestinians cut down trees on their own land and blame settlers.^[34][51][52] In some cases it was indeed discovered that the settlers were falsely accused of carrying out price tag attacks.^[53] In addition, allegations have also been raised against several media organizations who have classified certain incidents, in which there were no suspects and no charges were filed, as "Price Tag" attacks, while similar attacks carried out against Israelis are not classified similarly.^{[citation needed]}

In May 2011 the Israeli police arrested several members of the Israeli-Arab Bakri family from Jaffa under the suspicion of plotting to kill an Imam in the Hassan Bek Mosque in Jaffa, due to a business dispute. The murder was intended to appear as a "Price Tag" attack carried out by Israeli right-wing activists.^[54]

Israeli settlers were accused by an Arab farmer of having gathered his sheep into an area thick with brush and setting fire to the bushes, burning alive his 12 pregnant ewes. This claim was supported by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and reported by the Palestinian news agency Maan News and Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.^[55]The police questioned the farmer's description of religious settlers wearing skullcaps driving a car on Sabbath as most Orthodox Jews do not drive on this day.^[56] Caroline Glick writing in the Jerusalem Post reported that the farmer later admitted that he lost control of a brush fire that was responsible for the damage. Israeli media network, Arutz Sheva, said this incident exposed the tactic of leftists of accepting Arab claims and falsely accusing Jews.^[57][58]

Two 15 year old Bedouin students of Beit Zarzir confessed, after being arrested in March 2012, their responsibility for damaging a school for Arab and Jewish students, and spraying on the wall of the school, "Death to Arabs", “price tag,” and” “Holocaust to the Arabs”.^[59]

Israeli reactions

Official Israeli reactions

Israeli President Shimon Peres: "It is unconscionable that a Jew would harm something that is holy to another religion ... We will not allow extremists and criminals to undercut the need to live together equally in equality and mutual respect." October, 2011^[60]

The "price tag" policy has also been denounced by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many people across the political spectrum in Israel.^[61][62] Former Knesset member and settler leader Hanan Porat has also condemned the price tag policy. "The ‘price tag’ response is immoral," Porat said. "It’s unheard of that one needs to burn the vineyards and fields of Arabs. It’s immoral ... and it gives legitimacy to those who are interested in undermining the outpost issue. It's a very grave matter."^[63]

In 2008, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert condemned settlers in Hebron who attacked Palestinians and their property, referring to the attacks as a "pogrom". He said, "I am ashamed that Jews could do such a thing," and that he has ordered the defense minister and other relevant elements to "do all it takes, with all the strength needed and in any place controlled by the State of Israel, in order to stop this phenomenon." He promised authorities will take "aggressive action" to bring those responsible to justice.^[64]

The burning of a mosque at the Bedouin town Tuba-Zangariyye on 3 October 2011 shocked Israelis, as many Bedouins, including those from this village, serve in the Israeli army. The Israeli President Shimon Peres, accompanied by Israel’s two chief rabbis, visited the mosque, and after surveying the damage stated he was "full of shame". Peres also stated that the mosque burning is "an un-Jewish act." In denouncing the attack he added: "It is unconscionable that a Jew would harm something that is holy to another religion ... We will not allow extremists and criminals to undercut the need to live together equally in equality and mutual respect."^[60][65]

During the visit, the chief Sephardic rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Amar, and chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger, jointly condemned the act and conveyed a message of reconciliation to the village residents. Amar said that he saw it as his duty to set a personal example for the respect one must show to places holy to different religions. He stresses that in lieu of proof, the act may have not been committed by Jews, and the attempt to ascribe the act to price tag activists may be in fact a blood libel. He also added that if the arsonist was in fact Jewish – he was subject to some of the Jewish laws of Dinei Rodef.^[66]

The circumstances of the attack were questioned by some media sources, who suggested the possibility of an inside job. The graffiti that defaced the walls was written with coal and not paint. It was written on a part of the wall that was not obscured by soot, but rather below the soot-covered section. The mosque was located near village homes, and several others were closer to the main highway, several miles away. A Bedouin resident of the village went on television to say he thought the attack on the local mosque was perpetrated by Arabs local residents rather than Jews. According to Bassem Souad, "A Jew will not come and burn down this mosque. The one who burned the mosque is one of our own. I say this because I am not afraid of anyone. He is from the village, to my great regret."^[67] In response several shots were fired at his home.^[68][69][70]

Support and opposition among the Israeli public

Danny Dayan, Chairman of the Yesha Council: "price tag policy is a moral and tactical disaster ... It is in opposition to Jewish moral values and it damages the settlement enterprise. But I would expect that as we condemn the price tag policy we would expect Netanyahu to condemn the excessive use of force and of arms at Gilad Farm."^[71]

The settler leadership have "fiercely condemned" the "price tag" attacks, against either Palestinians or Israeli security forces^[72] A Haaretz editorial expressed scepticism over Yesha declarations, asserting that the response of condemnation to an earlier episode was marked by 'feigned and hypocritical shock'.^[73] Some settler leaders who have publicly expressed their opposition to some price tag incidents include Danny Dayan, Chairman of the Yesha Council,^[74] and Pinhas Wallerstein, former secretary general of the Yesha Council.^[75]

Elyakim Haetzni,^[76] an Israeli lawyer, pro-settlement activist and former right wing politician, wrote that price tag is "an infuriating term in terms of both morality and logic", and called it a "despicable method".^[76]

Former mayor of Kedumim Daniella Weiss, whom senior political and military figures reportedly believed was behind much of the settler violence classified as price tag actions after the evacuation of Beit HaShalom,^[77] is on record as rejecting the policy, saying that it had diverted settlers from what she considered to be their most important task – setting up additional caravans and tents to lay claim to ever more hilltops in the West Bank.^[78] She stated that the only "price tag" action acceptable to her is the establishment of a new outpost in response to every outpost that had been demolished by Israeli authorities.^[79]

According to a Ynet-Gesher survey conducted in March 2011, it was found that 46% of Israelis believe that “price tag” attacks are justified to a certain extent. A breakdown of attitudes among religious national and ultra-orthodox respondents revealed that a large majority are supportive of such price-tag attacks, with 70% of Orthodox and 71% religious nationalists Jews surveyed justifying the policy.^[29] Ori Nir of Peace Now evaluated the poll as indicating significant support for violent actions among the Israeli public, yet estimated that it is likely that the timing of the poll influenced the respondents' views. Israelis were still under the influence of the Fogel family massacre, when five Jewish family members, including young children, were massacred in their beds on Sabbath.^[6]

In a recent analysis Zeev Sternhell argues that while the vast majority in Israel is disgusted by these attacks, and the right is distancing itself from those torching mosques, there is little evidence that they condemn the daily harassment of Palestinians by settlers. The "price tag hooligans" are, he maintains, 'the vanguard of the entire settlement movement settler' and 'are increasingly reminiscent of phenomena in Europe in the interwar period.'^[80]

Support and opposition among Israeli Rabbis

Rabbi Haim Drukman : " 'Price Tag' are horrible, shocking, anti-Jewish and anti-morality"^[81]

The vast majority of Yesha rabbis and settlers reject it and/or have expressed their reservations of it,^[82][72] both on moral grounds, prohibiting harm to innocent people and due to the Halachic prohibition which such actions, and on practical grounds, due to the fear that such acts are actually harmful to the settlement movement in the West Bank.^[83][84]

Rabbis who have publicly expressed their opposition include Yuval Cherlow,^[85]Haim Druckman,^[81] Nahum Rabinovich,^[86] Shlomo Aviner,^[87] Aharon Lichtenstein,^[88] Yaakov Medan,^[89] Eliakim Levanon,^[90] Avichai Rontzki,^[91] Menachem Froman,^[92] Benny Lau,^[93] Samuel Reiner^[94] and Haim Navon.^[95]

According to the Israeli journalist Nadav Shragai, there is no Israeli leader or rabbi who openly supports this policy, yet some of the young activists who carry out these acts are students of the rabbis Yitzchak Ginsburgh, David Dudkavich and Yitzhak Shapira, who head the "Od Yosef Chai" Yeshiva in the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar. In an interview on Galei Tzahal in February 2010, Ginsburgh explicitly called to refrain from violence against Palestinians.^[96] Shapira, while urging a "fierce defense" of outposts, holds the IDF responsible for the atmosphere in which such acts are undertaken, and for implementing a price tag policy against the yeshiva.^[97] Shapira, who has called for retaliatory attacks against Palestinians, was arrested in January 2010 for his alleged involvement in the torching of a Palestinian mosque. He denied any involvement, and was released due to lack of evidence.^[98][99]

In July 2011, police announced that they would question prominent rabbis Dov Lior and Ya'akov Yosef over whether their endorsements of Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur's book, Torat Hamelech (The King's Torah) which argues that killing non-Jews is acceptable as part of a religious war, constituted an incitement. Security officials said that the book could be used by settlers to justify price tag retributive attacks on Palestinians.^[100]

The rabbi of Har Brakha, Eliezer Melamed, who according to Chaim Levinson of Haaretz, is considered one of the more extreme settler rabbis, used his weekly column in the newspaper "Basheva" to denounce the price tag policy. He wrote, "We don't aspire to private vengeance, but to state vengeance led by the Israel Defense Forces and all the systems of government".^[101]

According to rabbi Barry Leff of the Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights, the price tag policy is forbidden by halacha (Jewish religious law). Citing Deuteronomy 24:16, he writes that the Torah clearly forbids vicarious punishment, punishing someone other than the offender. Furthermore, according to Leff, when the perpetrators attack a mosque, a house of God, they are also guilty of violating the principle of Bal tashkhit, not to carry out wanton destruction, as well as the sin of Chillul Hashem, the desecration of God’s name.^[102]

Palestinian reactions

This section requires expansion.

A Palestinian Authority spokesman, Ghassan Khatib has stated that Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian agricultural land are “not random events”, and that they are “condoned and supported by the Israeli government” who provide settlers with “full impunity and army protection while they destroy Palestinian land”.^[103]

International reactions

This section requires expansion.

•  USA –
  • On 9 September 2011 the U.S. government condemned the recent "price tag" attacks in the West Bank and demanded that the culprits be arrested.^[104]
  • In November 2011, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA) in the Palestinian territories published a report on settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank that showed significant rises since 2010, and 2009. The report covered not only physical harm to Palestinians, but also property damage such as the impact of uprooted olive trees, damaged tractors or murdered sheep. These incidents include attacks on Palestinians and their property as a means of discouraging the Israeli authorities from dismantling “small satellite settlements built without official authorization, many on privately-owned Palestinian land”, which the report refers to as “the so-called “price tag” strategy”. The report states that 90% of complaints filed with the Israeli police by Palestinians of settler violence have been closed without any indictments.^[105]

List of incidents reported as, or suspected to be, price tag attacks

• 23 July 2008 -20 settlers attack the Palestinian village of Burin, smashing cars and windows and cutting electricity wires, after the IDF evacuated settlers from a residence-bus in the illegal outpost of Adei Ad.^[106]
• October 2008 – After government attempts to evacuate outposts, settlers unleashed a dog against an Israeli company commander, broke the hand of a deputy battalion commander and punctured the tires of a vehicle of a reserve soldier.^[41]
• 4 December 2008 – After Israeli police evacuated settlers from Beit HaShalom in Hebron, settlers said they would implement a price tag policy, and three Palestinians, including a father and son, were wounded by gunfire, 12 others injured and 15 cars torched.^[107] Follow-up incidents in which settlers threw stones at road junctions, fired and vandalized Palestinian property, cut down olive trees, and slashed vehicle tires occurred in at least 12 other locations throughout the West Bank later that day.^[108]
• 1 June 2009 – Settlers blocked the main Qalqilya-Nablus road near the Qedumim settlement and stoned and assaulted Palestinian drivers trying to remove the debris, injuring 6, after a cell-phone alert had circulated the evening before warning that the Israeli army was about to evacuate the Ramat Gilad outpost, located east of the Qarnei Shomron settlement in the Qalqilya Governorate. Settlers also set fire that day to roughly 1,300 olive trees and 280 dunums of wheat and barley crops belonging residents of Palestinian villages along Road 60 between the Qedumim and Yitzhar settlements. No evacuation was carried out.^[41]
• 20 July 2009 – After a few uninhabited structures in 3 settlement outposts in the Ramallah and Nablus governorates were removed by Israeli authorities, from over 1,000 to 1,500 olive trees belonging villagers from Tell, Madama, Burin, Asira al-Qibliya and Jit were destroyed. Cars were stoned, junctions blocked, two Palestinians motorists were injured, and six vehicles damaged near Nablus in an attack attributed by Palestinians to settlers from Yitzhar.^[108][109]
• 23 July 2009 – Connected to the events 3 days earlier, over 20 armed settlers from an outpost near Yitzhar entered the village of Asira al-Qibliya and hurled stones at the villagers. When the villagers responded with stones, Israeli security forces arrived, fired sound bombs and teargas at them, resulting in the injury of one Palestinian boy.^[108]
• 9 September 2009 – After Israeli forces removed the temporary structures in the outpost of Ramat Haregel in the Hebron Governorate, more than 10 settlers from the Israeli settlement of Susiya, went to the neighbouring Palestinian village of that name, hurled stones and physically assaulted the villagers, resulting in injuries to 15 members of a family, including 10 children. After Israeli forces intervened, the settlers returned to Susiya, none were detained, and the outpost was reconstructed that night.^[41]
• 14 October 2009 – Some 200 olive trees belonging to the village of Al Mughayyir, were felled by settlers from the illegal settler oupost at Adei Ad, near Shvut Rachel.^[110]
• 9 December 2009 – The Hasan Khadr Mosque at the village of Yasuf near Salfit was burnt, with 'price tag' slogan written on the wall.^[111] In January 2010, several settlers from the Yitzhar settlement were arrested as suspects.^[112]
• April 2010 – Settlers torched three Palestinian vehicles in Huwara near Nablus.^[113]
• 4 May 2010 – Settlers torched the main mosque of the al-Lubban al-Sharqiyya village, its extensive carpets and Korans, south of Nablus.^[113]
• 12 May 2010 – Fundamentalist settlers torched an 11-Dunam olive orchard in al-Rababa valley, in Silwan, destroying 3 300-year old trees in the grove and damaging many others.^[113]
• May 2010 – Settlers from Asfar burned more than 200 trees belonging to Palestinians from the village of Sa'ir, near Hebron.^[114]
• 25 July 2010 – In retaliation for the government's demolition of two caravans and a goat pen at Givat Ronen, settlers embarked on a price tag mission involving protests, road blocks and an attempt to torch an open field. One villager of Burin was injured in clashes with the settlers, and four settlers were wounded, one seriously.^[115][116]
• 16 August 2010 – 250 olive trees in the villages of Kosra and Jaloud, near Nablus, were uprooted by settlers from Shvut Rachel, according to an official of the PNA.^[117]
• 3 October 2010 – Arsonists, suspected of coming from Gush Etzion, set fire to rugs, defaced a Koran, and scrawled 'revenge' on the walls of the mosque of Al Fajjar/Beit Fajar, near Bethlehem.^[118][119]
• 13–14 October 2010 – Two vehicles, owned by a Palestinians were set on fire in Qusra, and branded with a 'price tag' slogan, according to B'tselem.^[120]
• 15 October 2010 – A 500-dunam olive grove by the village of Farata was firebombed by settlers from the wildcat Jewish settlement of Havat Gilad^[121] as part of a price tag operation. According to eyewitness Rabbi Yehiel Grenimann, who notified authorities as the arson attack got underway, Israeli soldiers prevented fire trucks from entering to put out the blaze for an hour, and local Palestinians asking for their assistance were themselves detained for three hours.^[122]
• 19 October 2010 – Rabbis for Human Rights reported a girls' school at As-Sawiya was broken into, and a schoolroom burnt.^[122]
• 27 February 2011 – In a price-tag operation against the evacuation of Havat Gilad, settlers threw molotov cocktails at a house in the village of Huwara.^[123]
• 28 February 2011 – Dozens of windshields of Palestinian cars were smashed in Hebron in retaliation for the recent evacuation of Havat Gilad.^[124]
• 4 March 2011 – Settlers from Shvut Rachel damaged roughly 500 olive trees belonging to the village of Sorra, near Nablus, and stoned homes, apparently in reprisal for the dismantling of several mobile homes.^[125]
• 17 March 2011 – 5 to 7 Jewish men, using a metal pipe and tear gas, assaulted two Palestinian labourers renovating a house on the edge of the settlement of Shiloh. A Jewish security guard protecting them was also injured slightly.^[126][127]
• 6 June 2011 – A mosque was defaced and damaged in Al Mughayyir, near Ramallah^[128]
• 25 July 2011 – Settlers torched the farmlands of the village of Sorra, after Israeli soldiers intervened to stop Israeli peace activists from preventing a group of settlers from uprooting trees, according to IMEMC.^[129]
• 5 September 2011 – Settlers torched the mosque of Qusra, south of Nablus.^[130]
• 7 September 2011 – Unknown perpetrators slashed the tires and cut the cables of 12 army vehicles at an IDF base, in retaliation for the demolition of 3 homes at the illegal settlement of Migron.^[131]
• 8 September 2011 – Settler youths made an attempt to deface the mosque of the village of Yatma, near Rechelim and Kfar Tapuach, in the Nablus Governorate in a price tag assault.^[104][132]
• 11 September 2011 – house of a left-wing activist in Jerusalem defaced with graffiti proclaiming "death to the traitors" and "price tag Migron"^[133]
• 25 September 2011 – Roughly 100 olive trees felled in the village of Doma south of Nablus, in a suspected price-tag action.^[134]
• 28 September 2011 – A grove of 45 olive trees uprooted near Hebron, apparently in reprisal for the death of a settler and his son.^[135]
• 3 October 2011 – Burning of a mosque at the Bedouin town Tuba-Zangariyye in the North District of Israel.^[136]
• 5 October 2011 – Settlers Uprooted 200 Olive Tree at Qusra, near Nablus.^[137]
• 7 October 2011 – Two cemeteries – one Christian and one Muslim – in Jaffa desecrated.^[138]
• 11 October 2011 – The Yitzchak Rabin memorial in Tel Aviv was desecrated, when a vandal sprayed the words "price tag" and "release Yigal Amir" on the memorial.^[139]
• 25 October 2011 – 20 trees from an olive grove at Beit Safafa owned by an Arab family of Jerusalem uprooted, with a price-tag sign posted nearby.^[140]
• 30 October 2011 – Vandals torched an Arab restaurant in Jaffa, and, according to a Tel Aviv-Jaffa city council member, the phrases "price tag" and "Kahane was right." were scrawled on its walls.^[141]
• 7 December 2011 – Arsonists tried to set fire to the mosque of the Palestinian village of Burkina, near the settlement of Ariel, and also torched two Palestinian vehicles, in a suspected 'price tag' assault.^[142]
• 13 December 2011 – 50 settlers and right-wing Jewish activists broke into the Efraim Regional Brigade Headquarters near the settlement of Kedumim, damaging military vehicles, torching tires, hurling Molotov cocktails and throwing rocks. An IDF spokesman Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai however refrained from using this term for the incident, noting that IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz hasn't used it for some time, and said that it needed to be defined correctly.^[143][144]
• 13–14 Dec 2011 – Arsonists torched the Nebi Akasha Mosque in Jerusalem marking the burial site of an Islamic prophet, Akasha bin Mohsin, in a suspected price tag action.^[145]
• 14–15 Dec 2011 – Arsonists defaced and torched the mosque at the Palestinian village of Burqa near Nablus , The slogans "Mitzpe Yitzhar" and "War," scrawled on the mosque suggest this was a 'price tag' retaliation for the dismantlement of the illegal settlement of Mitzpe Yitzhar conducted earlier by the IDF.^[146]
• 18 December 2011 – Hate slogans and the signature 'price tag' defaced the walls of the mosque of Bnei Naim, east of Hebron.^[147]
• 5 January, 2012 - In what police described as a 'price tag' attack, a Palestinian car-wash Shuafat was set on fire, and a GMC minivan and a truck belonging to Palestinians also incinerated.^[148]
• 11 January, 2012 - A mosque was defaced with graffiti and 3 cars torched in the West Bank village of Deir Istiya ^[149]
• 16 January, 2012 - Mohammad Ghannam, brother of Ramallah's governor, Leila Ghannam, had his car torched outside Deir Dibwan village near Ramallah in a possible price tag operation.^[150]
• 7 February, 2012 - In Jerusalem, a Jewish-Arab bilingual school, a symbol of coexistence, in which half the students are Jews and half are Arab, and the 11th-century Monastery of the Cross administered by the Greek Orthodox church were defaced with graffiti saying "Death to Arabs", "Kahane was right" and "Death to Christians" as well as "price tag". The two incidents, suspected of being 'price tag' attacks carried out by Jewish extremists,^[151] were later attributed to two Bedouin youths, who confessed to the acts. ^[152]
• 20 February, 2012 - Vandals daubed "Death to Christianity", "Jesus is dead," and "Mary was a prostitute" ^[153] on the Jerusalem Baptist Narkis Street Congregation church, and slashed the tires of several cars parked in the compound. The acts were countersigned by price tag graffiti.^[154][155]

Police investigations

• 5 December 2011. Seven women, including six underage girls were arrested on suspicion of both damaging equipment in a military tent near the Esh Kodesh community in October, and of participating in the cutting down of hundreds of Palestinians' olive trees near the village of Qusra.^[156]
• 7 December 2011. Police arrested 3 soldiers from the IDF on suspicion of involvement in price tag operations.^[157]
• 28 December, 2011. Police say they have discovered that most of the right-wing activists who vandalized the Ephraim Brigade's base were students at Jerusalem's Mercaz HaRav yeshiva.^[158]
• 10 February, 2012. A Golani Brigade soldier and resident of the Itamar settlement was arrested along with two young women, after film footage suggested the three vandalized the Palestinian village of Luban al-Sharqiya near Nablus on February 7th., by scrawling "Muhammad is a pig" on a wall and sabotaging a construction materials shop.^[159]
• 12 March, 2012, two Bedouin youths, arrested by police, admitted they had been responsible for spraying price tag slogans inciting against the Arabs on the walls of their school, on the borderline between the Jewish neighborhood of Katamon and the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa in early February. ^[160]

See also

• Israeli settler violence

External links

• Israeli settlers vandalize IDF base in first 'price tag' act against army – published on Haaretz on 11 September 2011
• 'Price Tag': Olive trees uprooted near Hebron – published on Ynet on 29 September 2011
• Israeli settlers' council condemns 'marginal group' behind vandalism at IDF base – published on Haaretz on 7 September 2011
• Another ‘price tag’ attack hits West Bank mosque – published on euronews.net on 8 September 2011

References