Olmert Brands Jewish Settler Rampage Against Palestinians a "Pogrom"

The Guardian recently posted a video clip showing rampaging Israeli settlers gunning down unarmed Palestinians. Today Ehud Olmert described the Israeli atrocities using the very loaded word "pogrom." From McClatchey Newspapers:

"As a Jew, I'm ashamed of the sights of Jews firing at Arabs in Hebron," Olmert said today at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting. "I have no other definition for what we saw but a pogrom. We are the sons of a nation which knows what a pogrom is, and I'm saying this after much thought. I have no other way to put it."

"We are the children of a people whose historic ethos is built on the memory of pogroms," Olmert said, according to an official translation from his office. "The sight of Jews firing at innocent Palestinians has no other name than pogrom. Even when Jews do this, it is a pogrom. As a Jew, I am ashamed that Jews could do such a thing."

A journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Avi Issacharoff used the word "pogrom" to denouce the settler violence last week. He was subsequently struck in the head by a stone thrown by an angry settler. A Haaretz photographer, Tess Scheflan, was taken to hospital after an Israeli soldier punched her in the face and followed that up with a blow from his rifle butt. The Israeli Defence Force apologized for the attack, said it is investigating and then, curiously enough, added that stickers of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem were on her cameras. Say what?