Israel's Shin Bet joins program to harness extremist Jewish youths

Israel's Shin Bet security service has joined an educational program aimed at convincing young right-wing Jewish radicals to cease from committing retaliatory attacks in the West Bank, the Yediot Aharonot daily reported Thursday. The project, initiated by the Israeli Education Ministry, focuses on the so-called "hilltop youth" aged between 14 and 18, who are involved in "price tag" attacks against the Palestinians and their properties in retaliation for terror attacks against Israeli settlers. Last week, the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem approved the program, dubbed "The Hebrew Shepherd," which is also supported by the Israeli police, welfare, justice and defense ministries. "Due to the significant involvement of minors in price-tag incidents, the program was launched to provide an educational- rehabilitative solution to youths in the West Bank as part of the efforts to eradicate nationalistically-motivated crimes," Dalit Shtauber, director general of the Education Ministry, wrote in a letter sent recently to the participants. The program seeks to "empower and support" the vandals by " strengthening the moral spirit that beats in their hearts, and channeling it for both their personal benefit and that of the state," said Shtauber. On Thursday, an emergency meeting was held to discuss a recent spike in price-tag attacks carried out in retribution for the stabbing to death of an Israeli settler in a terror attack near Hebron two weeks ago.