Settlers suspected in West Bank mosque attack
Posted: 12 December 2009 0138 hrs

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YASUF, West Bank : Assailants vandalised a West Bank mosque on Friday, spraying hate messages in Hebrew and burning holy books in an attack blamed on hardline Jews angered by plans to curb settlement building.

Clashes erupted as villagers hurled stones at Israeli troops sent to investigate the overnight incident in the northern West Bank's Yasuf village.

Security forces used teargas to disperse hundreds of furious villagers who began marching to the nearby Israeli settlement of Tappuah after Palestinians blamed Tappuah settlers for the attack.

Burned pages of the Koran lay scattered on the mosque's torched carpet. Graffiti in large Hebrew letters read: "Get ready to pay the price."

The area is home to some of the most hardline settlers who advocate a "price tag" policy under which they target Palestinians in retaliation for any Israeli government measure they see as threatening Jewish settlements.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak sharply denounced the attack.

"This is an extreme act meant to harm the government's attempts to advance the process for Israel's future," his office quoted him as saying.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas lashed out at Israel.

"We are blaming the Israeli government and the occupation army which must stop immediately the settlers' attacks against the Palestinian people," Abbas's spokesman quoted him as saying.

"The settlers are increasing the pressure against the Palestinian people and they are threatening security and stability in our Palestinian territory."

Israel's army said that security forces were working to locate the perpetrators.

Last week, a house and three vehicles were set on fire in another northern West Bank village. The owner of the house told police he saw three Jewish settlers start the fires.

Settlers have expressed outrage over the government's decision to impose a 10-month moratorium on new building permits for Israeli homes in the occupied West Bank, outside annexed Arab east Jerusalem.

But many also distance themselves from the "price tag policy."

Settler leader Danny Dayan condemned Friday's attack as "idiotic and outrageous" and harmful to the settlers' cause, according to Israeli public radio.

Meanwhile, in an apparent effort to placate settlers, an Israeli minister insisted the moratorium did not freeze construction but only limited it, and predicted the 300,000-settler population would grow by a further 10,000 over the 10-month period.

"Properly speaking, this is not a freeze. We are not planning to freeze life but only to impose certain limits on construction," Benny Begin said on Thursday.

Begin, a minister without portfolio from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish Likud party, is a member of the ministerial commission responsible for implementing the moratorium.

Further controversy was certain to arise after the premier's office said on Thursday that Netanyahu is pushing for some settlements to be declared national priority areas, which would entitle them to financial assistance.

The settlement issue has been one of the thorniest in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, which have been stalled for the past year.

The Palestinians reject the moratorium as insufficient and insist they will not return to the negotiating table unless there is a complete settlement freeze in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem which they see as the capital of their promised state.

- AFP /ls