Israel 'too soft ' on Jewish militants

JERUSALEM - Jewish radicals who take up arms pose a greater long-term problem to Israel than Arab militants, an Israeli security chief said in a recording.

Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin's closed-door briefing to army cadets at a Jewish settlement in the West Bank was aired as ultranationalist anger simmered over expectations that more Israeli-occupied land will be ceded to the Palestinians.

Official predictions of possible major civil strife over last year's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip were not borne out.

But unprecedented scuffles that injured scores of people as police dismantled an unauthorised West Bank settler outpost on Feb. 1 have prompted fears of future violent last stands by far-rightists who consider the territory a biblical birthright.

"Even if this angers you, I suggest that you think it over well. Understand that a Jew who carries out terrorism is ultimately much more of a cancer in the nation than an Arab who carries out terrorism," Diskin said in the recording, which was made last month and obtained by Channel Ten television.

In what appeared to be a response to a question on whether the Shin Bet's counter-terrorist department focusses overly on Jews, Diskin said he believed the Israeli justice system favours suspected Jewish militants over Arabs held in similar cases.

"I'll say this carefully: I do not see an equality in the way the system handles them, even when they are accused of the same kind of crime," Diskin said.

"So if you are taking about discrimination ... let's stop right here because you will discover that the discrimination favours the Jews far more than it does the Arabs," he said.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office, which oversees security services, confirmed that Diskin had made the remarks during a briefing at Eli settlement but had no further comment.

Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the frontrunner for March 28 general elections, has called for new West Bank withdrawals -- either as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians or as a unilateral move to set Israel's borders.

Galvanised by last week's confrontations at the Amona outpost, tens of thousands of settlers rallied in Jerusalem on Sunday under the banner condemning Olmert as "bad for the Jews". Settler leaders urge non-violent protests only from their followers. But they admit that the call could be lost on rogue radicals blamed for a recent rash of vandalism attacks on both Palestinian and Israeli army property in the West Bank.

An ultranationalist opposed to interim peace talks with the Palestinians assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Security was boosted around Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ahead of the Gaza withdrawal. Olmert, who assumed Sharon's powers after his January 4 stroke, is similarly well-protected.

- REUTERS