On April 21, masked young men from a wildcat West Bank settlement calling itself the Baladim outpost pelted an Israeli army patrol with stones. Before that, the settlers used clubs and stones to attack Israeli peace activists who shielded Palestinian shepherds with their bodies. Several activists were wounded. Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman issued a stern statement condemning the attack. He pledged “zero tolerance for violence.” The minister demanded that law enforcement authorities bring the thugs who attacked the military patrol to justice. “This is a serious phenomenon that we cannot tolerate,” the minister wrote on his Facebook page. Not a word about the violence against the Palestinian shepherds or any wishes for a speedy recovery to their wounded Israeli protectors. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who never misses an opportunity to lash out at leftists, didn’t even condemn the attack on the soldiers.

It’s safe to assume that just as in dozens of previous instances, the coming Jewish Sabbath will also be dedicated to attacking shepherds and Israeli volunteers. The soldiers who show up at the site (late, as always) in an armored vehicle will chase away the settlers until the next attack, or until the shepherds are once and for all uprooted from their land — whichever comes first. The criminals know that the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will always be there for them. The best and brightest of the democratic Jewish state have been carrying out this despicable task for 50 years. In kindergarten, they were already being taught that the IDF is the “people’s army” and the Palestinians are the people’s enemy. And their Education Minister, Naftali Bennett, of the right-wing, pro-settlement HaBayit HaYehudi party, says God only gave the land to us, and, therefore, we as a nation cannot be considered occupiers of our own land.

Forty-nine years ago, professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz wrote that “a state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions.” Therefore, for the sake of saving the people, society and the state, the religious scientist and intellectual called on Israeli soldiers to disobey orders to serve in the occupied territories. “Even if only several hundred refuse to serve,” Leibowitz wrote, “it could shake up the public and pave the way for a political, moral-spiritual upheaval.”

Some 30,000 young Americans and Australians burned their draft notices in the 1960s and 1970s at mass rallies against their countries’ involvement in the Vietnam War. But in Israel, only a very few heeded Leibowitz’s call. Organizations of conscientious objectors, such as the Jewish New Profile and Yesh Gvul and the Druse Urfod, are a drop in the ocean compared to the tens of thousands of young Israelis volunteering to serve in military policing units in the occupied territories. Even the use of the term “occupation army” has become heresy. Maj. Gen. (Res.) Gadi Shamni, who was head of the central command that includes jurisdiction over the West Bank, generated a slew of headlines and condemnations when he admitted last September that Israel was the “world champions of occupation.”