Israel Authorizes Troops to Use Force on Settlers

JERUSALEM —  Alarmed by the recent fierce clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli government ordered its troops Tuesday to “act firmly and aggressively” against all lawbreakers and to “do all that is in their power to prevent violent confrontations.”

In a dramatic and politically charged order, Israeli army commanders were authorized to use force against the settlers, not only against Palestinian rioters, if necessary to maintain order.

The military directive is intended to break a spiral of political violence in which radical Palestinians attack Israelis and the settlers respond with counterattacks against innocent Palestinians, more of whom then turn against the accord Israel signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization on limited self-government.

The Cabinet changed the government’s policy after concluding that ultra-rightist settlers, who had begun attacking Palestinians regularly last month, constitute a serious threat not only to the peace accord but to Israeli democracy, according to Health Minister Chaim Ramon.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin “must and will show the extremist part of the settlers that we are determined to defend Israel as a democratic state,” Ramon declared in an interview.

“This is not a struggle against or in favor of the peace process but for Israel as a democratic state,” Ramon said. “If they succeed in enforcing their position by violence, then it will become a legitimate political instrument.”

Criticizing the government’s past reluctance to use the army against rampaging settlers but its mockery of those who protested peacefully, Ramon had told the Cabinet on Sunday: “The right policy is to be very tough on the lawbreakers and very understanding of those who protest but respect the law.”

According to the Palestinian human rights monitoring group Al Haq, at least 13 Palestinians have been shot and wounded by settlers in the past two weeks, and the damage to property runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Faisal Husseini, the most prominent West Bank Palestinian leader, warned Monday that Palestinians would soon begin looking for ways to defend themselves against the hard-line settlers--and that this would further undermine support for the peace process and lead to more conflict.

Although the army would not disclose what steps it would take against settlers engaged in violent protests against the peace accord, troops are armed with rubber bullets, tear-gas grenades and other weapons for crowd control.

On Tuesday, an army officer was injured when he was hit in the head by a rock thrown by a settler during an anti-Arab riot in the West Bank town of Hebron, according to a military spokesman. Troops tried but failed to restore order as the settlers shot out windows, burned cars and overturned stands in the central market.

“If it becomes clear that in order to keep this agreement (on Palestinian autonomy) they need to have half the army there, the agreement will not reach fruition because the Arabs don’t want the army there,” said Aharon Domb, a spokesman for the settler movement Yesha.

And an increased military presence to maintain order in the occupied territories, Domb continued, “will only serve our purposes.”

Two Palestinians were killed in earlier incidents Tuesday that underscored the fragile nature of the cease-fire and the hopes, both Palestinian and Israeli, of turning it into a permanent peace.

A 16-year-old youth, the son of a prominent West Bank family, was shot dead when soldiers opened fire on teen-agers they said were throwing stones from a schoolyard in El Bireh, north of Jerusalem.

An 18-year-old Palestinian, released a few months ago from prison after a brief term following his conviction on charges of helping Hamas, the militant Islamic Resistance Movement, was shot and killed after stabbing two Israelis, one a policeman, near the crossover from the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli authorities. A third Israeli used the injured policeman’s gun to kill the Palestinian.

Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Gur, who maintains close ties with the settlers, said that many of the recent Jewish protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip resulted directly from the attacks of Palestinian radicals on the settlers and that their anger is understandable.

“We shall have to explain to our soldiers and the settlers the danger that might arise as a result of that behavior,” Gur said, explaining the new order, “and we must find a way to put an end to it. . . . I will give the proper orders according to the legal obligation to maintain law and order.”

The attorney general, meanwhile, opened a formal investigation into the “Committee for Road Safety,” a vigilante group under the ultra-Zionist Kach movement that said it was responsible for the shooting of two Palestinians earlier this month near Jericho and for other incidents.

Justice Minister David Libai warned in a speech in the West Bank that the settlers “must know that the government has red lines they must not cross--that they cannot take the law into their own hands.”

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, acting as prime minister while Rabin is in the United States, called senior officers of the army and police together Tuesday with other law enforcement officials to work out a program to implement the Cabinet decision for evenhanded policing of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“The armed forces are instructed to act firmly and aggressively against Jewish disturbers of the peace and Arabs as one,” the military spokesman said after the meeting. “This includes instructions to soldiers to do all that is in their power to prevent violent confrontations with Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.”