The new American report on terrorism strongly criticizes the Israeli regime for its lackluster response to attacks by extremist settlers against the Palestinian population and their property.

"Attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian residents, property, and places of worship in the West Bank continued and were largely unprosecuted according to UN and NGO sources," says the State Department's annual Country Report on Terrorism.

Within the chapter on Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and al-Quds is a sub-section dedicated to heinous "price tag" attacks, defined as "property crimes and violent acts by extremist Jewish individuals and groups in retaliation for activity they deemed to be anti-settlement." According to the report, citing the United Nations and NGO sources, such acts were "largely unprosecuted."

There were 399 attacks by Israeli settler extremists that resulted in Palestinian injuries or property damage, including five vandalized mosques and three churches in al-Quds and the West Bank.

The report was released at a time of increasing attacks of this kind, specifically within the Green Line. On Wednesday, a car belonging to a Nazareth resident was vandalized in an apparent hate crime carried out by Israeli extremists, the second in the last 24 hours.

Overnight Monday, vandals sprayed graffiti of a Star of David and the phrase "close mosques, not yeshivas" on a mosque in the northern Israeli Arab town of Fureidis. Tires of several cars parked in the area were also found slashed. Two weeks ago, graffiti was sprayed on a mosque in Umm al-Fahm and vandals tried to torch the entrance to the mosque.

NTJ/NJF