By Robert Mackey, The Lede @ nytimes.com, Jan. 8, 2014

Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, denounced a campaign of attacks on Palestinian civilians and property by extremist Israeli settlers as “outright terror” on Wednesday, after two cars were set on fire with Molotov cocktails and Hebrew graffiti — reading “price tag” and “Esh Kodesh revenge” — was sprayed on the walls of a West Bank village.

The vandalism took place in early morning near the village of Qusra, in apparent retaliation for an incident there the day before [....]

According to a translation from Israel Hayom, Mr. Yaalon, the Israeli defense minister, said on Wednesday: “The phenomenon called ‘price-tag’ is inherently wrong and I consider it outright terror. We are sparing no effort to find its perpetrators and we will show them zero tolerance.”

“The State of Israel cannot permit itself to have phenomena of this kind emerge from within,” he added. “We will not permit marginal, extreme and violent groups to take control by force of land that is not theirs, in violation of the law, or to threaten Palestinian residents who are working their land.” [....]