An important op-ed in Ynet:
Ya’alon, let IDF win
Following months of academic discussions on whether a third intifada has erupted or not, the time has come for an operational debate on the issue, which will probably conclude that while a third intifada has not been launched, we are in the midst of a pre-intifada period.
Our hostile neighbors are once again investing overtime hours in their old ballistic habits. All day long they throw stones at Israeli vehicles travelling in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and hurl Molotov cocktails with the frequency in which fireworks light up the sky on Independence Day.
Each Friday, the Islamic day of recreation and rest, the violence surges. After the Palestinians are done eating their lunch they go out and hassle our forces in regular confrontation sites: Nabi Saleh, Na’alin, Qaddum, Silwad, and other villages.
Due to orders from above, during these confrontations IDF soldiers are breaking the international record for restraint in urban or semi-urban warfare. They are attacked with rocks and slingshot pellets, without being able to fire back because such an image may look bad in the press or jeopardize the peace negotiations, which will resume any time now.
Senior commanders and legal advisors are instilling this prohibition deep into the soldiers’ psyche and frightening them ahead of every operation, to the point where they do not even open fire when they are permitted to do so.
“I prefer to see my soldiers in the hospital than in court,” a senior IDF commander in the West Bank admitted. This is a terrible statement.
Read the whole thing.
Incdientally, the title of the op-ed reminds me of this famous Star Wars scene, which is itself a reminder of the power of deterrence.
