is there some kind of doctrinal root for this behavior? to have so many people involved from across the spectrum of Israeli society would suggest there is some small kernel here that can justify the behavior. anything?

EDIT: should have noted I am looking for responses that are NOT antisemitic.

You pose a valid question, but there’s no legitimate Jewish doctrine behind it, any more than there was legitimate Christian doctrine behind it eighty, ninety years ago when the Nazis were doing it to the Jews.

This is not so much a religious question as it is a problem of human nature. When your own national leader makes it clear that even the worst of human behavior is acceptable when you can plead patriotism in its defense, you will find that tacitly given permission magnified beyond your wildest imagination in short order as people with darkness inside them realize there really is nothing holding them back from having a go themselves.

If it were something doctrinal to the Jewish faith, you would also be seeing it outside Israel. If anything, it is a perversion of actual Judaism, just as white nationalism in the US is a total perversion of Christianity.

If you’ve never read it before, Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a great read.