Jewish Settlers Continue Protests, Burn Classroom

Jewish settlers in the occupied territories blocked Palestinians from going to jobs in Israel and burned an Arab classroom Monday in the fourth straight day of protests since a settler’s murder.

Aliza Herbst, a spokeswoman for the settlers, said no main roads were barricaded, only small streets outside Arab villages to show the Palestinians that “they cannot do whatever they want.”

“Until the army guarantees our safety, we will have to restrict Arab movement in areas where Jews have to get around,” she said.

The settlers, in prayer shawls and with submachine guns slung over their shoulders, conducted morning prayers in the rain at 48 roadblocks.

The settlers also took over some vacant government homes, proclaiming themselves squatters.

They accused Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who is also defense minister, of failing to protect them.

By freeing Arab prisoners, ostensibly to reinforce his peace deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Rabin was in fact encouraging further violence, they said.

In the Palestinian refugee camp of Jalazoun, a group of settlers attacked an Arab preparatory school run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, smashing windows in eight classrooms and setting one on fire, U.N. officials said. The attack came before children were in school.

The settler protests started Friday after the stabbing murder of settler Haim Mizrahi, from the West Bank settlement of Beit El.