Olmert slams 'pogrom', Palestinians still fearful

07 Dec 2008 21:08:19 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Alastair Macdonald HEBRON, West Bank, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday that attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians last week were a "pogrom" and that Israeli police must end "intolerable leniency" towards such violent offenders. "As a Jew, I am ashamed of other Jews doing such a thing," Olmert told his cabinet, referring to a shooting incident. But in the West Bank city of Hebron, where at least three Palestinians were wounded by gunfire on Thursday after troops cleared dozens of hardline, religious settlers from a large building, many locals were skeptical of such Israeli promises. "We're expecting to be attacked again at any time by the settlers," said Bassem al-Jabari, as he and other neighbors looked at the evacuated site on Sunday. "No one cares about us." Olmert, who has resigned over a corruption scandal but stays on as caretaker until after a Feb. 10 election, has lately taken to describing settler attacks as "pogroms", using the Russian term for violence against Jews a century ago that drove some to emigrate to Palestine and, in time, establish the Israeli state. "We are a people whose historical ethos is built on the memory of pogroms," Olmert told his cabinet, according to a statement. "The sight of Jews standing with guns and shooting at innocent Palestinian civilians can only be called a pogrom."