[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Its a given that people pull out the "game plan" in the wake of such an
incident to trash their political rivals. And all the hard work done
documentating the heavy police prosecution of Jews in places like Hebron
goes down the toilet.

There are probably enough idiots idiots out there that this was carried out
by some jerk and is not some sophisitcated operation geared to actually hurt
the national camp.

Either way, the response of "fringe group" leaders shows a surprising
absence of sophisitication. This from people who have been involved in PR
for years.

They could have easily condemned the action "for its negative impact" - just
like Palestinian "moderates" condemn the murder of Israeli civilians because
it is counterproductive rather than simply wrong.]

Dichter: Jewish terrorists tried to murder left-wing professor
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent Last update - 10:17 26/09/2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1024632.html

Israel Prize winner Zeev Sternhell was lightly injured Wednesday when a pipe
bomb exploded outside his home in Jerusalem, in what police suspect could be
a new campaign by right-wing extremists to target prominent left-wingers.

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter called the incident "a nationalist
terror attack apparently perpetrated by Jews" and said the police would not
rest until "those terrorists" were behind bars.

"We should see the explosive as aimed at killing," Dichter said, adding that
the attack "takes us back to the days of [Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin's
assassination."

Professor Sternhell walked out of his home in a quiet Jerusalem neighborhood
shortly after midnight to shut a courtyard gate when the bomb went off,
lightly wounding him in one leg, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby
said.

Outside Sternhell's home and in nearby streets Wednesday, the police found
fliers offering NIS 1.1 million to anyone who killed members of left-wing
human rights movement Peace Now. This led to the suspicion that Jewish
terrorists were behind the pipe-bomb attack, due to Sternhell's harsh
criticism of West Bank settlers and their harassment of Palestinians.

The police stressed that the bomb was not meant to intimidate but was a
murder attempt.

After the attack on the professor, the police have beefed up security around
the home of Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer.

"If this was not an act committed by a deranged person but by someone who
represents a political view, then it is the beginning of the disintegration
of democracy," Sternhell said Wednesday from his hospital bed in the
capital's Shaare Tzedek Medical Center.

He said that "the incident illustrates the fragility of Israeli democracy,
and the urgent need to defend it."

"On the personal level, if the intent was to terrorize, it has to be very
clear that I am not easily intimidated," he said. "But the perpetrators
tried to hurt not only me, but each and every one of my family members who
could have opened the door, and for that there is no absolution and no
forgiveness."

Sternhell, an internationally renowned expert on the history of fascism, was
awarded the country's highest honor, the Israel Prize, earlier this year.
The award drew fire from West Bank settlers and their supporters, who
unsuccessfully petitioned Israel's Supreme Court to block it.

Kadima leader and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni condemned Wednesday's attack,
saying that the incident was "intolerable, and cannot be glossed over."

At a ceremony marking the Rosh Hashanah holiday at the Foreign Ministry,
Livni said that "Israel is a lawful state and is populated by a society with
values. It is the responsibility of the government and Israeli society to
renounce such phenomena as soon as they rear their heads."

Senior political figures also expressed outrage at the news of the attack on
Sternhell, which has touched a nerve given the country's history of
political violence, they said.

"We are returning to the dark era of pipe bombs aimed at people, in this
case against a very gifted person who never hesitates to express his
opinion," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

According to the chairman of the Knesset's internal affairs committee, Labor
MK Ophir Pines-Paz: "The attack on Prof. Sternhell is a cowardly, terrorist
act by those with no sense of justice." He urged the police and Shin Bet
security service to strive to capture the perpetrators quickly and ensure
that they receive hefty prison sentences.

"They'd better not talk to us about a few wild weeds," Meretz chairman Haim
Oron said. "These people appear on the right wing."

"This thuggish and dangerous act is the result of the continuing see-no-evil
approach toward the vicious violence against soldiers and police officers
and anyone else who doesn't agree with the brutish section of the extreme
right wing," Oron added.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, an activist with a fringe settler group calling itself the
National Jewish Front, said Sternhell was an irrelevant figure and that he
did not believe settlers were behind the attack. "I don't denounce this
incident, but say categorically that we are not involved," Ben-Gvir said.

Sternhell had recently received threatening phone calls, but the bomb attack
on him took the Shin Bet and police by surprise. They had no intelligence of
a terror group targeting left-wing activists.

A special police team started taking statements from neighbors of the
Sternhell family. The police believe the perpetrators stayed in a house
nearby in the past few weeks, studying Sternhell's movements, and that
passersby and neighbors must have seen them.

"There are hundreds of peace activists in Jerusalem. We have no sign of any
intention to harm anyone specific and cannot protect so many people without
more specific information," a police source said.