Perhaps there's some truth to this, but I think that this is a bit too Freudian for me.
I just think that they will do whatever they think will give them prestige- whatever that may be.

I continue to disagree. The Sicarri aren't normal Chareidim, as I mentioned, but only a few marginal nebeshes. But neither they, nor their wider communities' members have any interest in conquering and converting the world to their beliefs in the form of some idealized past as do the other fundamentalists that you mention. Even the Sicarri don't want to make the whole world Chareidi. So while the Sicarri group of so-called Chareidim aren't dangerous - but they certainly are disgusting.

Their goal is not conquest but preservation for themselves and not others of their idealized past, as you mentioned, in as pristine a condition as possible. But those of them who are more insightful can see that they are dependent upon the outside inextricably linked with the outside. They aren't a bunch of economically independent Amish farmers.
So even if they sometimes look the other way when the Sicarri nebeshes provoke some incident or other, in a perhaps unarticulated hope that such will help draw a boundary to keep out the outside world - it won't work in the long run. The Chareidim for the most part speak excellent Hebrew even among themselves and they are really Israelis whether they like it or not. They're modern in many ways and becoming more so and all the edicts that their leaders might issue will merely be like sweeping back the tide. So long as the outsiders don't take the bait and start discriminating against the wider Chareidi communities, I think that such partial assimilation into the wider Israeli society will continue.

The attempted parallel between the spitters and killers with "modern weapons" doesn't work. There is, after all, quite a difference. Not everything is morally equivalent.

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/150252/#ixzz1l6LN...

I support this writer's reply to "Nowarnomore" above. "Nowarnomore" has no experience as an insider within Chareidi Jewry and is off-base. There's no affinity between the two cultures.

I must assume that this was meant as hyperbole. However there is no affinity between the two cultures based both upon intellectual history and practice. Traditional Jewish women in general are far more erudite and assertive of their individuality.

I don't know whether the above remark is addressed to my previous posting; however please allow me to reply none-the-less.
The so-called "Taliban ladies" as they are disparagingly known in Chareidi circles are reviled and spat at by these same thugs. By dressing as they do they too have stepped outside of their communities' narrow behavioral norms. An investigative report about them was done a few months ago by one of the Israeli networks. They are newly religious and with very little background or grounding in the norms of Chareidi communities and without support systems within the Chareidi communities and they have their own groups of like-minded and ignorant newbies. They appear to be very sick people. These marginal and marginalized people are to be pitied but not taken seriously. They are outsiders both within Israeli society generally and within Chareidi society particularly.

May I suggest one other motive:
These men are obviously NOT in the Beit Midrash (study hall) where they are expected to be. I therefore suspect that these are the "failures" who could not make it as scholars and therefore in the usual course in their community would have had lower social standing. They have created their own positions as self-styled community activists, "askanim", so as to excuse their being failures at the only really prestigious male community endeavor for them, Talmud study. Thus they can say that they are not "batlanim" (in the vernacular the current meaning=lofers) but askanim (activists).
In reality of course they are looked at with contempt and some degree of fear, by their own community who still unfortunately through a combination of fear of reprisal and through misplaced community solidarity against those viewed as hostile outsiders. In other words its not that much different than what would be expected of members of inner city communities faced with violence by gang members - a mixture of disdain and fear. The good news is that many Chareidi ("Ultra Orthodox") community members are now finding the courage to confront these thugs. If their community as a whole is not blamed by outsiders as being responsible for the acts of these few petty thugs, then the normal people in those communities won't feel a need to protect their communities against outside critics.

The bottom line: criticize the thugs and not their communities.