French Militants Increase Tensions at Jewish Settlements
The source of this story making the rounds on some left blogs is Al Jazeera, any lizards have more info or background?
Now the French chapter of Jewish Defense League has sent 55 armed militants to supplement several settlements and they are reported to carry assault rifles. In the picture above, taken from the linked Al Jazeera English article, I count only one of the seventeen weapons that is capable of less than lethal fire, the M203 grenade launcher, unless of course the assault rifles are heavily modified. I doubt these fighters will heed the words of Israeli military authority. Who do they report to? Who commands their deployment? Who will watch them to ensure that deadly force is used only as a last resort and in self defense? Armed fundamentalists of any type are never a recipe for non violence. They have an agenda, unlike the Israeli Soldiers who, if they are anything like American Soldiers, don’t really want to be there in the first place and are following orders of a Government that is not necessarily spoiling for a fight.
Worse, JDL in France has had numerous members convicted of vandalism and violent crime against French Muslims, notably the assault of 4 university students. Not the people I would want with me to keep a complicated standoff from getting worse. As the UN bid for Palestinian statehood marches towards its inevitable no vote from the Security Council, tensions are rising to a breaking point throughout Israel. What was already a powder keg of potential violence now has a French extremist militant standing close by with a lit match.