IN AN unprecedented move the Israeli government decided yesterday to immediately cut off all funding to illegal outposts erected by Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
Jews have set up dozens of these small hilltop communities over recent years, in defiance of an official freeze on creating new West Bank settlements, hoping that by creating "facts on the ground" they will be able to thwart the transfer of the West Bank to the Palestinians under any future peace deal.
Government support for the 120 larger, established Jewish settlements, also considered illegal by the international community, will continue.
The government crackdown followed a spate of recent attacks by extremists against Israeli soldiers who were dismantling buildings erected illegally by Jews in the West Bank.
In one incident, that shocked the Israeli public, a settler shouted at troops that they deserved a fate similar to that of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been in captivity in Gaza for more than two years after being seized by Palestinian militants.
This week Israel marks the 13th anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the weekly cabinet meeting was devoted to the question of the threat posed by right wing extremists.
The head of the internal Israel Security Agency, Yuval Diskin, warned ministers that another assassination to torpedo a peace deal with the Palestinians was a real possibility. "Just ahead of the anniversary of Rabin's murder, the agency sees in the extreme right a willingness to use firearms in order to halt diplomatic processes and harm political leaders," Mr Diskin said.
Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer called for a "blitz" against the extremists, urging arrest without trial.