The rise of the Jewish Taliban.

IN OCTOBER, SOME of the worst racial rioting in Israel's history broke out when hundreds of Jewish and Arab gangs took to the streets of the mixed Israeli Arab town of Acre, stoned each other, vandalised cars and shops, attacked police and set property on fire.

At midnight during the first day of Yom Kippur, one of the holiest periods of the Jewish calendar when even secular Jews fast, stay at home and don't drive, an Israeli Arab drove to the predominantly Jewish eastern part of the city where he owned an apartment. He was subsequently set upon by a gang of Orthodox students who stoned his car and beat him up.

The Jewish youths claimed he was disrespecting their holy day by driving and smoking. After news of the attack broke out, gangs of Arab youths armed with knives and bats took to the streets in protest. They were confronted by Jewish youths, forcing the Israeli police to declare a state of high alert as riot police formed a human cordon between the two sides and arrested dozens.

Earlier in the year riots broke out in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox suburbs after members of a Jewish "chastity squad" were arrested for carrying out vigilante attacks on Orthodox Jews they believed had behaved immorally.

While one of these suburbs, Mea Shearim, is infamous for the stoning of moving cars on Shabat, the Jewish Sabbath and attacks on women who show their arms and legs, these self-appointed "warriors of God" had gone too far, even in the opinion of the majority of Orthodox Jews.

Two members of the chastity squad were arrested after they broke into an ex-Orthodox woman's apartment and savagely beating her, causing her to be hospitalised. Police arresting six members of the "chastity squad" were pelted with rocks. The "work" of the "chastity squads" has also included stoning women for wearing the "provocative" colour red and torching stores that sell MP4 players in the fear they will be used to air pornography.

Stores that sell clothes regarded as provocative have been vandalised with bleach thrown at merchandise, with suspicion all that's needed to spark an attack. Girls have been expelled from school after being seen talking to boys, a punishment that ruins their marriage prospects.

In April, a group of ultra-Orthodox men caused a ruckus on a flight of El Al, Israel's national airline, when they became abusive and rowdy after a film was shown which they considered immoral.

The squads have also made media headlines for enforcing the gender division on buses that service their neighbourhood, forcing women to sit in the back section, with those that refuse to do so being verbally abused and beaten.

An Orthodox Canadian tourist found this out the hard way. Miriam Shear says she was travelling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City last year when a group of ultra-Orthodox (haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the bus.

In an interview following the incident, Shear says that she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded she sit in the back of the bus with the other women. The bus driver, in response to a media inquiry, denied that violence was used against her, but Shear's account was substantiated by an unrelated eyewitness on the bus who confirmed that she sustained an unprovoked "severe beating".

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The power which Israel's ultra-Orthodox have over Israeli society, where the majority of citizens are secular, has long been a point of friction. And the recent violence has further deepened the antagonism between Jerusalem's 600,000 haredim, or Godfearing, and the secular majority, who resent having religious rules dictated to them.

Public transport comes to a halt on the Sabbath even though the majority of Israelis believe it should continue to operate. Shops are forced to close and all restaurants and stores are forced to keep kosher rules, with the sale of pork strictly forbidden.

Recently secular Jerusalemites were angered over the proposal to establish an ultra-Orthodox kindergarten in a mostly secular neighbourhood. Secular residents, proud of their ancestors' struggle to establish a modern city based on democratic and non-religious values saw it as a threat to modernity and feared it would attract more religious fundamentalists who would try to enforce their values. And the influence of the ultra-Orthodox is growing as a result of the high average birth rate of eight children per Orthodox woman, as opposed to the national average of three children per secular Israeli woman.

What infuriates Israelis is that the government gives special child allowances to these families, even though many of them neither work nor pay taxes. They are also exempt from taking part in military service so the bulk of financing their families and lifestyle falls on the shoulders of the secular.

This group of religious fundamentalists also presents a threat to the future of peace talks to end the long and protracted Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The rightist ultra-Orthodox Shas party refused to join a coalition government that the new leader of Israel's ruling Kadima party, foreign minister Tzipi Livni was trying to form, when she refused to promise the division of Jerusalem would not even be discussed.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is illegally occupied by Israel. The Palestinians wish to make this the capital of a future Palestinian state as they are entitled to according to UN Security Council resolutions.

The Palestinians have stated categorically that Ferusalem is a red-line issue and one they will not give up on. However, any incumbent Israeli government has always been forced to pander to Shas' blackmail, since the support of the smaller coalition parties is essential in forming a majority government.

Meanwhile the Palestinian "threat" has managed to force very different groups of people who share only the same religion, nationality and language to co-exist uneasily together. However, should this external "problem" be removed, many social observers believe the schisms within Israeli society would fracture even further and instead of brutalising the Palestinians, Israeli Jews would soon end up brutalising each other.

MEL FRYKBERG reports from Jerusalem