W. Bank Settlers' Rage Grows

Shamni said that in the past few weeks, settlers set a dog on an Israeli reserve commander and broke the arm of a deputy battalion commander. The tires of cars belonging to reserve soldiers were slashed. And in the southern town of Hebron, settlers attacked an officer for trying to arrest Jewish children who had thrown stones at Palestinians.

Yitzhar, home to 160 families and isolated on a hilltop, has long been known as a bastion of radicalism. Residents say it is their presence that prevents an Israeli withdrawal from the area.

Ben Yakov, 31, said he has refused to do mandatory reserve duty for the past three years, since Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. During the pullback, Israel dismantled 21 settlements in Gaza and soldiers forcibly removed many of the settlers from their homes. The Gaza pullback had an especially profound effect on young settlers, who had grown up with a belief that the Israeli army was fulfilling a holy mission of defending Jews who wanted to settle in all parts of the land of Israel.

Ben Yakov's sister-in-law, Tzippi Feld, said the Gaza withdrawal shook her faith in the army. Feld spent months demonstrating against the planned pullback and served a month in jail for trying to block traffic at the entrance to Jerusalem.

"We used to be so Zionist and so proud of our state and our army," the 26-year-old dance teacher said. "But after the pullback from Gaza, it all collapsed. I'm so upset with the government. I feel like they're abandoning so many of us."

Compounding settlers' frustration over the Gaza pullback is alarm over recent statements by Olmert in which he suggested that Israel needs to withdraw from nearly all the West Bank in order to make peace with the Palestinians. Settlements like Yitzhar, which are east of the barrier Israel is building in and around the West Bank, would be the first to be left behind.

The growing extremism among settlers gained prominence last month after an attack on Zeev Sternhell, a professor and prominent critic of the settlement movement. Sternhell was slightly wounded when a pipe bomb went off as he opened the door to his apartment at 1 a.m. Fliers were found nearby offering a large reward to anyone who kills members of Peace Now, a dovish group.

Olmert, who resigned the prime ministership last month but remains head of a caretaker government, harshly condemned that attack.

"An evil wind of malice, of hatred, of extremism, of lawlessness is blowing through certain sectors of the Israeli public and threatens Israeli democracy," he told his cabinet.

The bombing raised fears of growing divisions within Israeli society, and brought back memories of the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by an extremist Jew, Yigal Amir, who wanted to stop the peace process with the Palestinians.

"The sense that it is getting out of hand was stronger after the attack on Sternhell," said Gershom Goremberg, author of "The Accidental Empire," a history of the settlement movement. "Internal fratricide is much more frightening than violence which takes place across the line of national conflict. I think it's a mistake if you let a culture of vigilantism flourish against the Palestinians. It's only a matter of time until it affects Jews as well."

Even some veteran settler leaders are concerned about increasing radicalism. Yisrael Medad, a settler spokesman, said young settlers are angry with settlement leaders for not doing enough to stop the Gaza withdrawal. Many settlers, he said, are suspicious that the government is planning a much larger withdrawal from the West Bank, and they are determined to prevent that.

"There are radical elements who are reacting less responsibly than we would like to see them do," he said. "There are a few hotheads running off and doing things of a criminal and violent nature, and we are trying to deal with it educationally."