Alleged settler vigilantes arrested

HEBRON, West Bank -- The arrest of five suspected Jewish militants in the West Bank city of Hebron and nearby settlements in the past month is raising concerns about a new Jewish "underground,'' reminiscent of settler vigilantes who attacked Palestinians in the mid-1980s.

The five were arrested for allegedly plotting violence against Arabs, security officials say, including a failed plan last year to detonate a bomb at a Palestinian girls' school in Jerusalem.

The Shin Bet security service has given the investigation high priority and says more arrests may be made. A Shin Bet official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said vigilante suspects in the Hebron area are "very few,'' but potentially very dangerous.

A judge has clamped a gag order on the investigation and law enforcement officials refuse to discuss details. The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said it knows of 15 killings of Palestinians in the past three years in which Jewish militants are suspected.

Settler leaders are concerned about the possibility of vigilante groups, said spokesman Yehoshua Mor-Yosef. "We view anybody taking the law into their own hands as totally unacceptable, whatever problems the state of Israel may be facing,'' he said.

Jewish settler leaders in Hebron deny involvement in vigilante violence.

The arrests are an attempt by the authorities to delegitimize the 500-strong community and to make it more acceptable to remove Jews from the city as part of a future deal with the Palestinians, said David Wilder, a spokesman for the Hebron settlers.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is a longtime patron of Jewish settlement of the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- some 220,000 Israelis live there now -- but some settlers feel he has betrayed them by accepting the U.S.-backed "road map'' to peace.

Settler leaders have also complained Sharon is not tough enough with Palestinians.

Hebron is home to more than 130,000 Palestinians and is one of the tensest spots in the West Bank, marked by constant friction between the settlers and Palestinian residents.

Forty Israelis in the Hebron area, both settlers and the soldiers sent to protect them, have been killed in Palestinian violence in the past 34 months. In December, Palestinian gunmen killed 12 settlers and soldiers in an ambush. About 140 Palestinians have been killed in the Hebron area in the same period, including several dozen involved in fighting, according to B'Tselem.