Israel’s right-wing violence ‘a cause’ of Palestinian attacks, says IDF commander

A senior Israeli army commander has told a court that “right-wing violence in the West Bank is one of the causes” of what he called “Palestinian terror”, Haaretz reported on Friday.

The Director of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) operations directorate, Major General Nitzan Alon, made his comments as an expert witness during the trial of two men accused of inciting violence through a far-right website. Avraham Binyamin and Yehoshua Hess deny the charges.

Although not the main motivation for Palestinian violence, claimed Alon, it is in part due to “the activity of Israelis against Palestinians.” There are, he explained, also religious and nationalist motives involved.

“They [the Palestinians] differentiate between the activities of soldiers and those of settlers,” added the former head of Central Command covering the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, “but for them both are occupation.”