Israel spy chief fears Jewish extremist plots against political leaders

by: Salaam

Sun Nov 02, 2008 at 22:51:43 PM EST

Salaam writes: Diskin is warning about the same movement that has made an unprecedented effort to influence the US presidential election. I have a large amount of posts on this site covering that effort.  Just use the search function on this website and type in 'Aish Hatorah'.

JERUSALEM - The head of Israel's internal security service said Sunday he is "very concerned" that Jewish extremists could assassinate an Israeli leader in an attempt to foil peace moves with the Palestinians.

There has been a recent increase in violence by hardline Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and this week, Israel marks the 13th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli opponent of his negotiations.

"Just ahead of the anniversary of Rabin's murder, the Shin Bet sees in the group we're talking about on the extreme right a willingness to use firearms in order to halt diplomatic processes and harm political leaders," Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said. "The Shin Bet is very concerned about this."

Diskin spoke at the weekly meeting of the Israeli Cabinet, and his statement was released by another meeting participant who spoke on condition of anonymity because the session was closed.

Opening the meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned of growing lawlessness among West Bank settlers. Groups of settlers have clashed repeatedly with Israeli police, soldiers and Palestinians in the past week over the evacuation of an unauthorized outpost they set up in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Alongside law-abiding settlers, Olmert said, "there is also a significant group of people that has cast off all authority and behave in a way that threatens the correctness of the rule of law, not only in the area they live in, but in the overall atmosphere of the state of Israel, and that is unacceptable and we are not willing to live with it."

Story here.