In the runup to the elections here in just 77 days, there is a lot of talk on the street about what we would expect a new government to do about issues related to our interfacing with the Arab community here.   These generally fall into one of three categories of concern: (1) The high level of violence in the Israeli Arab sector about which I have written previously; (2) Concern about the possibility of a new intifada generating in the Palestinian controlled West Bank; and (3) Israeli settler violence against the Palestinian population in the West Bank or Judea and Samaria, the traditional biblical names for the region.

While all are of concern, the issue of settler violence seems to be more contentious than the other two.  For example, violence in the Arab sector in Israel is simply a fact.  There is a murder there on the average of once a day (see my earlier blog on this at https://tinyurl.com/5e7ct82n) so the problem is well known.  A new intifada emerging from the West Bank?  This is not a given but it is generally acknowledged that there is a large illegal buildup of weaponry going on that concerns the authorities here.

However, on the issue of settler violence, there are a lot of........

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