This Ongoing War: A Blog: 05-Oct-15: On safeguarding a nation

Monday, October 05, 2015

05-Oct-15: On safeguarding a nation

Our plea addressing the prime minister - one of numerous
such unheeded letters and articles we published prior to Israel's mass
freeing of convicted killers in October 2011 [Source]

In the flow of reports tonight about the apprehension of a terrorist gang from Nablus in relation to the murders of Naama and Rabbi Rabbi Eitam Henkin this past Thursday night, there's now this official statement by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu:

We have brought an additional four IDF battalions into Judea and Samaria, and thousands of police into Jerusalem. The police are going deeply into the Arab neighborhoods, which has not been done in the past. We will demolish terrorists' homes. We are allowing our forces to take strong action against those who throw rocks and firebombs. This is necessary in order to safeguard the security of Israeli citizens on the roads and everywhere. We are not prepared to give immunity to any rioter, inciter or terrorist anywhere; therefore, there are no restrictions on the action of our security forces. We will also lift restrictions regarding action against inciters. We will act against the Islamic Movement which, together with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, is the main source of incitement.

Sounds like the right approach. We only wish that the same prime minister, faced with the opportunity to sound as determined as this, had acted with equal purpose before these latest murders instead of after.

Perhaps a sincere-sounding apology for some of those past catastrophically bad Israeli government decisions might have been in order today.

Terrorism requires uncompromising determination, and a clear-eyed view of the people who incite and the messages of incitement they propagate. Far too many Israeli families are today paying the hugely-painful price for unforgivable, irreversible errors on these matters by officials of our government.

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