Barak: Justice system too easy on lawbreaking settlers

Defense Minister Ehud Barak yesterday accused the justice system of impeding efforts to enforce the law in the territories by treating lawbreaking settlers too leniently.

He also said his office is considering paying compensation to Palestinian victims of settler riots in Hebron earlier this month.

Speaking at yesterday's cabinet meeting, Barak cited the suspended sentence meted out to Rabbi Ya'akov Ariel, who was convicted of assaulting Maj. Gen. Elazar Stern, as an example of the courts' problematic leniency in meting punishments.

"This is merely one example in a long list of verdicts that demonstrate a lenient line against lawbreakers," he said. "This greatly undermines deterrence against potential lawbreakers and does not enable us to uproot this phenomenon."

In contrast, Barak insisted, the Israel Defense Forces are now taking a hard line against settler lawbreaking.

"Over the last two years, no new [settlement] outpost has been established," he said.

"Three have been evacuated, and attempts to establish [outposts] have been quickly dismantled - like the Shvut Ami outpost, which was evacuated 20 times."

The Migron outpost, he added, has agreed to evacuate voluntarily within two years.

Barak also said he favored increasing the use of administrative detentions against right-wing extremists.

Meanwhile, two nonprofit organizations yesterday initiated a hotline for soldiers and policemen who wish to report witnessing settler attacks on Palestinian persons or property.

The organizations, Yesh Din and Breaking the Silence, have promised not to reveal callers' identities without permission.

The groups said they founded the hotline because the security forces often fail to intervene to stop settler attacks.

Sometimes, this is because policemen and soldiers are unaware of their duty to do so, they said, and other times, the refusal is deliberate, the groups said.

But either way, the organizations hope that by correlating soldiers' and policemen's reports to the hotline with reports they receive from Palestinian victims, they can help the authorities to identify and take action against such noninterference.