Extremist Settler Attacks Israel Defense Minister
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A far-right Jewish activist and onetime Knesset candidate attacked the Israeli defense minister’s car in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Calling Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon an “enemy of the settlements” who was “strong against Jews and weak against Arabs,” Baruch Marzel jumped on the minister’s car while Yaalon was visiting the Tomb of the Patriarchs Tuesday, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Yaalon was not injured and Marzel was not arrested, although security forces forcibly escorted him away from the scene.
Born in Boston, Marzel headed the outlawed Kach movement after the death of Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose grandson was one of three suspected Jewish terrorists placed in administrative detention without charges last week. Marzel, who lives in a Jewish settlement in Hebron, was on the Yachad party’s slate in Israel’s March 17 elections, but the far-right party did not win any seats in the Knesset.
In February, Israel’s Supreme Court overturned a government committee’s decision to disqualify Marzel, along with Arab-Israeli lawmaker Hanin Zoabi, from running in the elections, but declined to give a reason.
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