ONCE again Israeli political leaders weep crocodile tears over a vile crime that is the logical consequence of their racist words and deeds.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pontificated after the immolation of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh as he slept at home in Duma near Nablus that “Israel takes a strong line against terrorism regardless of who the perpetrators are.”

This is a bare-faced lie. Tel Aviv deploys terrorism to achieve colonisation of all of historic Palestine.

So-called “price tag” attacks on unarmed Palestinians by residents of Israel’s illegal settlements on the West Bank have gone unpunished for years.

From chopping down olive groves and fruit trees to throwing missiles and opening fire on Palestinians, these crimes have escalated to take in arson attacks.

Israeli occupation forces that are so vigilant against any threat to the illegal settlements appear powerless to prevent planned attacks.

Even when they appear belatedly on the scene of the anti-Palestinian assaults, they arrest no perpetrators but are swift to deal with any resistance by local residents.

Netanyahu emphasised during Israel’s general election that he would prevent an independent Palestinian state and, in common with all Israeli parties that have shared in government, has backed the settlements as part of zionism’s colonisation campaign.

The “price tag” atrocity that cost little Ali his life, disfiguring his mother, father and four-year-old brother, was a response to the Israeli High Court’s order that two partially completed blocks built illegally on Palestinian-owned land by the Beit El settlement should be demolished.

Netanyahu responded not by urging respect for the court ruling but by authorising construction of 300 Jews-only homes in the area.

Illegal settlers know where their prime minister stands. With them against international law and human decency.

They heard him deliver similar zero tolerance to terrorism claptrap last summer after 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir was abducted by three Jews, including two teenagers, in occupied East Jerusalem before being beaten unconscious and burned alive.

Mohammed’s mother pointed out that the Palestinians who captured and murdered three young Jews near Hebron were not only shot dead but their family homes were demolished.

This has never happened to a Jewish terrorist — not even Baruch Goldstein who massacred 29 worshippers at the Sanctuary of Abraham in Hebron or Yigal Amir who assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Home demolition is applied uniquely to Palestinians designated terrorists by a terrorist regime.

Politicians in the US and Europe turn a blind eye to Israel’s ethnic cleansing, claiming to be convinced by the mythology that Likud, Labour, Kadima and so on are committed to a two-state solution if only the peace process could be kick-started.

Which Western politician or media chain has demanded action after this week’s Amnesty International report into Israel’s war on Gaza that highlighted “strong evidence” of Israeli war crimes in Rafah a year ago?

The obscene killing of a collared lion in Zimbabwe by a US citizen has generated more international anger than the 500 children massacred by Israel’s armed forces in Gaza or the burning to death of Mohammed and Ali.

Palestinian official Saeb Erekat is right to label the “brutal assassination” of Ali as “the consequence of a culture of hate funded and incentivised by the Israeli government and the impunity granted by the international community.”

How many more innocent Palestinian civilians will share a similar fate before politicians accept the need to back the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel?