Coexistence struggles

JERUSALEM (AFP) 16 December -- Israeli police on Tuesday arrested 10 members of
extremist anti-Arab group Lehava which has been linked to an attack in November
 on a Jewish-Arab school. The attack, which incited violence against
Arabs and equated them to a "cancer", sparked a wave of condemnation and
came amid months of rising tensions and unrest in Israel and the
Palestinian territories. "Ten suspects, members of the Lehava organisation,
have been arrested for questioning following incitement and calls for
racist acts of violence and terror," the police said in a statement. The
suspects were arrested at their homes in the Israeli towns of Petah Tikva
and Netivot, as well as in Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in the occupied
West Bank. Police also seized computers belonging to the suspects. Among
those detained was Lehava leader Bentzi Gopstein, who lives in the
flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron. Gopstein's lawyer said the arrests
were political. "The police are acting against Lehava even though it's a
legal organisation fighting against assimilation," Itamar Ben Gvir said,
accusing the "left" of pressuring the police into making arrests. Leftwing
MPs have demanded that Lehava be banned as a "terrorist organisation".
Three Lehava members were arrested last week on suspicion of torching a
classroom at the Hand-in-Hand school, a rare symbol of coexistence in
Jerusalem.
http://news.yahoo.com/israel-arrests-10-anti-arab-extremist-swoop-074639541.html;_ylt=A0LEVicCy5BUyTUAeqIPxQt.