UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry today condemned a flurry of high profile settler attacks across the West Bank, urging the Israeli government to “combat violence and terror” by the settler groups.

The settlers have launched a number of attacks in recent weeks, burning mosques and chopping down olive trees ahead of the harvest. Israel’s government has criticized the attacks, but made no arrests.

And naturally Israeli officials are “outraged” by what they termed the “reprehensible” comments of Robert Serry, with one insisting that it was unfair to criticize the “vigilante actions” instead of focusing on “Palestinian suicide bombers attacking civilian buses.” Of course there hasn’t actually been a Palestinian suicide bomber in over two years, and that was against a military target.

At the same time settlers have not only continued to launch attacks with impunity, but have pledged to launch more “price tag” operations. The attacks, though targeting West Bank civilians, are ostensibly meant to protest the ongoing peace talks, and have been shrugged off by a number of members of the Israeli government who are themselves opposed to the talks.