Ze\'ev SternhellIsrael’s Public Security Minister Avi Dichter called the pipe bomb blast that [lightly] injured Haaretz columnist and peace advocate Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell earlier today an “assassination attempt” and a “nationalistic terror attack perpetrated, in all likelihood, by Jews, which pushes our society many years backward.”

The LA Times reports that Israeli leftists say this isn’t about a few nuts, but is part of an escalation of attacks, linking it to increased settler violence against Palestinians.

Israeli leaders including Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak lined up to decry the attack as an affront to Israeli democracy.

A vocal critic of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and the settler movement who also identifies himself as a super-Zionist, earlier this year he won Israel’s most prestigious honor, the Israel Prize. But it also caused an angry outcry from many in the illegal Settler movement, likely leading to this attack on his home where the bomb exploded. (Many Israelis talk openly about how the conflict with the Palestinians serves at least one important function, uniting Israelis so they can postpone confronting their own massive and growing secular/extremist religious internal divide.)

Shortly after the bombing, police found “fliers offering more then NIS 1 million to anyone who kills members of left-wing human rights organization Peace Now.” That’s about $300,000. Police are now offering protection to Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer.

BELOW: Video of recent settler attacks on Palestinian village of Asira, which Israeli leftists say is part of overall escalation of violent attacks, including the assassination attempt on Sternhell. The video is posted by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, which opened its first US office yesterday.

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