Ehud Barak, Israeli Defense Minister: Mosque-Burners Are 'Terrorists'

(Oct. 4) -- Play with fire and you're bound to get burned -- maybe even by your own countrymen.

That's the lesson that arsonists -- allegedly disgruntled Jewish settlers -- learned today after torching a mosque and at least a dozen copies of the Koran in Beit Fajjar, a Muslim Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank. Now they are taking heat from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who Monday evening harshly condemned of the attack, even calling his fellow Israelis terrorists.

"Whoever did this is a terrorist in every sense of the word, and intended to hurt the chances for peace and dialogue with the Palestinians," the statement read, according to The Jerusalem Post. "This was a shameful act that besmirched the state of Israel and its values."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was similarly incensed by the actions of the supposed settlers, the Post reports, asking security officials to "expose those responsible and bring them to justice as soon as possible." No deaths or injuries have been reported in the attacks so far, but the property destruction is said to be great.

The attack came at a pivotal point in the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli proposed peace talks: A 10-month-long freeze on new Israeli settlement construction in the nominally Palestinian-occupied West Bank expired last week, but Netanyahu is trying to convince his Cabinet to seriously entertain the idea of a 60-day extension, which Palestinian leaders say is a necessary precondition for keeping the talks going (though some illegal construction inevitably continues during such freezes).

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Graffiti on the mosque prior to the burning suggests that the arson what the latest in a series of so-called "price-tag" attacks, which radical settlers have launched in an effort to show the price of forcing them to forgo their homes. But some aren't so sure that this latest round of violence is really the work of Jewish residents.

"Experience has taught us that it not always Jews who have committed such crimes," said Shaul Goldstein, chairman of the nearby Gush Etzion settlement, according to Haaretz, "But still, we condemn the act."

Israeli officials continue their investigation.

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