Jewish extremists and terrorists have effectively become “the sovereign” in the occupied West Bank, while the Israeli army protects their illegal activities and serves the political interests of the far-right government, a veteran Israeli military analyst has warned. He described the situation in which the army protects “Jewish extremists and terrorists” as intolerable. READ: The meaning of Tell: Why the West Bank may be nearing a breaking pointIsraeli reserve soldier Benayahu Mellet and Israeli army officer Major Yuval Ezra were killed. Ben-Yishai argued that the Tell incident exposed a much wider collapse of Israeli authority in the occupied territory. A senior Israeli military official has separately described the proliferation of illegal settlement outposts as one of the army’s “biggest challenges”.