Palestinians look at Hebrew graffiti outside a mosque vandalized by settlers in the West Bank town of Kfar Yasuf. (Rami Swidan, Maan Images)

For decades the settlers have been stealing the helpless peasants' land and Israeli governments have been paving the settlers' roads. Every year during the olive harvest, Jewish malefactors raid olive groves in the West Bank, and the long arms of the security forces are too short to assist the Palestinians. In the rare cases when they do catch the culprits, a charitable judge "takes the circumstances into consideration."

But to set fire to a mosque - and on the Festival of Lights? This time they have really gone too far. Even the president cannot ignore such a "sinful act," as he described it. By the way, this is the same Shimon Peres who as defense minister had the honor of planting the first tree in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, most of whose homes are built on private Palestinian land.

If the settlers would have set fire to yet another Palestinian wheat field, the report of the event would have been at best shunted to the nether regions of the news programs. The charred walls of the mosque make for much better photographs, though. Besides, if we do not denounce the burning of a mosque on the west bank of the Jordan, what will we say tomorrow, when a synagogue is burned on the right bank of the Seine? Even Rabbi Elyakim Levanon of the Yesha rabbinical council announced after the torching in the village of Yasuf that "the holy places of the three faiths are beyond the struggle." How nice that a prominent rabbi from a hesder yeshiva denounced the arson. This way it will be easier for the state coffers to continue paying the salaries of the religious fanatics and for the induction center to send them more soldiers.

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