Doubts grow within Israeli Army

[Classical_Liberal]

Doubts grow within Israeli Army

Military argues over tactics against Palestinians
An Israeli soldier watches over handcuffed Palestinian residents during a raid in the West Bank town of Nablus in August.

By Molly Moore
THE WASHINGTON POST
JERUSALEM, Nov. 18 — The hunt for suspected militants sent Sgt. Lirom Hakkak bashing his way through a wall into a Palestinian family’s threadbare living room, his slender frame sweating under nearly 35 pounds of body armor and combat gear, his M-16 rifle ready.


HE NOTICED the grandmother first, her creased face so blanched with terror that she appeared on the verge of collapse. A middle-aged couple huddled close by, trembling.
“They could be my parents,” Hakkak, the 22-year-old son of an Israeli poet, recalled thinking. In that split second of recognition, he said, “you really feel disgusting. You see these people and you know the majority of them are innocent and you’re taking away their rights. You also know you must do it.”

As the Israel Defense Forces enter a fourth year of battle with the Palestinians, the most dominant institution in Israeli society is also embroiled in a struggle over its own character, according to dozens of interviews with soldiers, officers, reservists and some of the nation’s preeminent military analysts.
Officers and soldiers have begun publicly criticizing specific tactics that they consider dehumanizing to both their own troops and Palestinians. And while they do not question the need to prevent terrorist acts against Israelis, military officials and soldiers are speaking out with increasing frequency against a strategy that they say has forsaken negotiation and relied almost exclusively on military force to address the conflict.
Nearly 600 members of the armed forces have signed statements refusing to serve in the Palestinian territories. Active-duty and reserve personnel are criticizing the military in public. Parents of soldiers are speaking out as well, complaining that the protection of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is not worth the loss of their sons and daughters.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/994931.asp

[Herschel]

1. The grandmother and couple

would have been murdered in cold blood had they been Israeli and the soldier a Palestinian militant. Wailing for negotiation with terrorists is fruitless. The back of Palestinian resistance must be broken. These few hundred that refuse to defend a nation under seige should be disciplined promptly and firmly. I will leave it at that.

[bluesoul]

2. Resistance must be broken?

So not only terrorism, but legitimate resistance against the IDF? Actually you could say that the Palestinians should be broken which is pretty much what Israel has been doing for the last 3 decades. Your comments continue to be amusing to say the least. I will leave it at that...

[Herschel]

3. Armed attacks on the IDF

If you applaud these attacks, be mindful of the consequenses. Palestinians laying dowm their arms will begin the road to peace.

[bluesoul]

4. Armed resistance

against an occupying power is legitimate, whatever you might think. So they should not be resisting while their land is stolen, inhabited by illegal settlements, wall being built on their land to cut them off their families. Yeah right...

[The Magistrate]

12. Something Worth Bearing In Mind, Mr. Soul

Merely because there is a right to act in a certain way does not mean doing so is the right way proceed. Arab Palestinian resistance may be legitimate when properly conducted; that does not make it the wise, or the most beneficial course, for Arab Palestinians to take. Viewed over the long haul, it does not seem to have accomplished much: the more the people of Arab Palestine fight, the more straitened grow their situations and their prospects.

It is a common position among supporters of Arab Palestine here that Israeli "self-defense" is a mere pretext for further depredation. If that is the case, all that armed resistance achieves is to provide the enemy political further for further harm to the people of Arab Palestine. Perhaps it would be wiser to call the bluff: to down arms and cease providing the covering pretext, and see if the depredation continues?

Such a course does not stir the blood, of course, and will make no glorious appeal to ardent and romantic spirits, but it might well improve both the present situation and future prospects of the people of Arab Palestine.

[Classical_Liberal]

5. I doubt the couple would have been threatened if

israel had stopped the settlements and given them a state during the last peace. The Israelis government has created the problem it claims to protect its citizens from. Why doesn't Israel ask the Yeshiva students to serve if differences of opinion are't respected?

[GabysPoppy]

6. You may be right

Had Arafat accepted what was offered or at least have made a counter offer.

As to your last comment, I have no idea what you are attempting to say.

[Classical_Liberal]

7. Well Barak lied about the generousness of the offer

perhaps he gave Arafat the impression it was finale. Any way I don't admire Arafat either. There are alot of old men that just won't let go on all sides. Arafat won't desolve his non government! Sharon won't let go of the settlements, and for that matter neither will Labor whatever their claims. Shimon Peres won't retire and make way for Mitzna, it goes on and on.

[GabysPoppy]

8. Sorry, you still make no sense

Barak Lied. - That's your opinion which you are welcome to have but it's still just your opinion.

Perhaps he gave Arafat an impression of finality. - Once again it's your opinion.

If Labor is the same as Likud, what difference does it make if Mitzna takes over or not? Oh, and BTW what position are you suggesting that Peres retire from?

[Classical_Liberal]

14. No it isn't my opinion

http://www.gush-shalom.org/generous/generous.html

When Barak said he gave them a generous offer, I assumed he gave them the west bank not disunited bantustans. He similarly mislead most Israelis, and most propeace jews. He almost killed the peace movement with this misleading claim as well.


It is a just a plain fact that Barak didn't offer all of the west bank, or all of the land Israel occupied after 67.

If Barak was willing to give the peace movement a misleading impression to support Sharon, why wouldn't he lie about the impression he gave Arafat.

I suggest that Labor would be more different with Mitzna in control, which is why Peres should simply retire from politics since he is the one that derailed Mitzna's attempt not to become part of Sharon's murderous coalition after the last election.

[The Magistrate]

16. Still, Ma'am

It is hard to argue the situation of the people of Arab Palestine would not be much better today had Mr. Barak's proposals been accepted, and negotiated further. The last three years of violence have brought nothing good.

[Gimel]

17. According to inside reports

Generous offers were made verbally but rejected. Why weren't the offers part of the written agreement? Because the Palestinians always want to restart the negotiations with the latest offers. This was reported in a thread here. Perhaps someone remembers the reference.

[drewb]

9. "WE MUST BREAK THEIR RESISTANCE"

Hmmmm.... Where in history have I heard that before???

[GabysPoppy]

10. Sounds like

Bill Parcels talking to Phil Simms

[ex_jew]

11. Sounds like the sort of thing the Peruvian government

might have said about Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (Lori Berenson's favorite guerillas). Does she have a similar soft spot for the dispossessed of Palestine ? Just curious...

[The Magistrate]

13. You Are Not Going To Defend The Shining Path, Are You, Sir?

You have rather a full plate already here, and that is a deeply murderous crew. Year Zero never bodes good for many.

Ms. Berenson's case hinges on the likelihood she was not knowingly involved in violent activities, which seems quite likely to me: naivete is a valuable resource for the "hard men" who do such things.

[The Magistrate]

15. The Most Important Elements Of This Article Are These

First, the realization that the tactics of occupation dehumanize the people subjected to them and the soldiers who carry them out alike, and second, that the defense of the settler fanatics is not worth the lives of Israel's sons and daughters.

The first is well known to students of military affairs. Garrison duty among a hostile populace is the employment most destructive to military moral and discipline of all duties soldiery can be put to. It is inherently brutalizing and corrupting; this cannot be avoided, or even much minimized over time. Military occupation can be done more or less badly, but it cannot be done well. The only solution is either to cease attempting it, or to win the acceptance of the occupied populace.

The spreading realization in Israel that the settlements are an albatross round the nation's neck is the leading hope for a beneficial change in that country's political life today. The settler movement is a small but insistent claque, that exerts an influence on national policy out of all proportion to its number, and brings the nation only grave difficulty. It must be broken as a political influence.