Attack
On September 25, 2008, Sternhell was the victim of a pipe bomb attack at his home, and was lightly hurt. Jerusalem police, who found fliers offering more than 1 million shekels (approximately $300,000) to anyone who kills members of Peace Now at the scene, suspected that he was attacked by right-wing settler extremists for his views. From his hospital bed, Sternhell said that "the very occurrence of the incident goes to illustrate the fragility of Israeli democracy, and the urgent need to defend it with determination and resolve". "On the personal level," he continued, "if the intent was to terrorize, it has to be very clear that I am not easily intimidated; but the perpetrators tried to hurt not only me, but each and every one of my family members who could have opened the door, and for that there is no absolution and no forgiveness."
After his release from the hospital, he said he will continue to voice his opinions. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner condemned the attack, saying "The assault on Professor Sternhell is an assault on values of peace and brotherhood that served as an inspiration to Israel's founding fathers". When the investigation was launched, right wing settler groups made claims that the bombing had been carried out by agents provocateurs.
In October 2009, Israel police arrested Yaakov “Jack” Teitel, a Florida-born religious Jew, for the attack on Zeev Sternhell. Israel police revealed that Teitel, who apparently acted alone, also admitted to a string of other terrorist attacks and attempted attacks, including murdering a Palestinian taxi driver and a West Bank shepherd in 1997 and an attack on the home of a Messianic Jew in Ariel in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Zeev Sternhell
Famous quotes containing the word attack:
“We attack not only to hurt someone, to defeat him, but perhaps also simply to become conscious of our own strength.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It is well worth the efforts of a lifetime to have attained knowledge which justifies an attack on the root of all evil—viz. the deadly atheism which asserts that because forms of evil have always existed in society, therefore they must always exist; and that the attainment of a high ideal is a hopeless chimera.”
—Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910)
“Adolescents swing from euphoric self-confidence and a kind of narcissistic strength in which they feel invulnerable and even immortal, to despair, self-emptiness, self-deprecation. At the same time they seem to see an emerging self that is unique and wonderful, they suffer an intense envy which tears narcissism into shreds, and makes other people’s qualities hit them like an attack of lasers.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)