A prominent dovish Israeli professor who was wounded by a pipe bomb outside his Jerusalem home warned Friday that the attack against him underscored the collapse of the rule of law in the occupied territories.

Police believe the bomb was placed at his doorstep by right-wing Jewish extremists angered by Professor Zeev Sternhell's outspoken views against the Israeli occupation and against Jewish settlement of the West Bank.

Sternhell, 73, and a Holocaust survivor, was locking up his house at around 0030 am early Thursday (0930 GMT Wednesday) when the bomb exploded. He was lightly wounded in one leg.

Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter strongly condemning the attack, said it should be regarded as an "assassination attempt" and as a "terrorist attack, perpetrated, in all likelihood, by Jews."

The bomb should be viewed as meant to kill, not just to intimidate, he said.

Police found fliers near Sternhell's home, offering a reward of over one million shekels (some 290,000 dollars) to anyone who kills a member of the dovish, anti-occupation and anti-settlement Peace Now protest group.

In an interview with Israel Radio from his hospital bed, shortly before being released, the Polish-born renowned political scientist and historian said the attack could either have been carried out by a lone Jewish extremist, a group, or "an entire settlement which decided to settle accounts (with me.)"

Sternhell strongly criticized Israel's attitude toward acts of vandalism and violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians, Israeli soldiers or left-wing Israeli activists.

"Society isn't reacting as it should," he said, charging some Israelis were responding with "forgiving smiles," some by "closing their eyes" and others by shrugging "there is nothing we can do."

"The rule of law," he said, "has collapsed in the (occupied) territories," where "two different populations" - Jewish settlers and Palestinians - were subject to "two different law systems."

The settlers, he charged, were "breaking the law in an endless number of ways."

He added that the attack by alleged radical Jews against him underscored that Israel's democracy was under threat.

"Democracy cannot exist under these conditions. In a democracy, a public debate, as sharp as it may be, must be conducted only with words - only with words," he said, adding he had been making his statements against the occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza "for 40 years, because I really think that the settlement (enterprise) is a historic catastrophe."

Sternhell frequently writes opinion pieces for the left-wing Israeli Ha'aretz daily. In one in May 2001, at the height of the second Palestinian uprising against Israel characterized by frequent suicide bombings in Israeli cities, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor wrote that "the Palestinians would be wise to focus their struggle against the settlements."

The article also called on Palestinians to refrain from hurting women and children, and from placing bombs "on the western side of the green line" separating the West Bank and Israel.

The article had been interpreted as condoning and calling for Palestinian militant attacks on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and caused outrage at the time. Sternhell, who in February was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for political science, later clarified he had meant the Palestinians should avoid attacks on any civilians.

Israeli settlers had attempted to prevent him from receiving the prize by petitioning Israel's highest court.

Israeli legislators and media have reacted with shock and outrage to Thursday's attack, with many saying it brought back chilling memories of the November 1995 assassination of then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a radical Jew opposed to his peace moves with the Palestinians.