Weekly Commentary: Clear Red Lines with Unambiguous Consequences For
Controllable September
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date:8 September 2011

“Those authorized to perform guard duty in Judea and Samaria are permitted
to open fire against unarmed demonstrators who are threatening to infiltrate
a settlement, if such an infiltration, under the circumstances, presents in
the guard’s opinion an immediate and real life threatening danger,”
Eyal Elad - Attorney-General’s Office for Judea and Samaria 21 August 2011
(As reported in The Jerusalem Post 9 September 2011)

“There is concern at the IDF, and especially from the Military Advocate
General, that any such instructions will be interpreted as rules of
engagement by the settlers."
Chaim Levinson Haaretz Published 30.08.11

Let’s be clear about this.

If a group of ostensibly unarmed Palestinians marches into a Jewish
community in Judea and Samaria there is absolutely positively no way of
knowing either what they are carrying on their persons or what they will
even do with their bare hands.

And it doesn’t matter if they are accompanied by cameras from ABC, CBS, SKY,
BBC, CNN and twenty other services.

The very moment that the group approaches a community and passes over the
predetermined defense lines they constitute – by virtue of their very
presence – “an immediate and real life threatening danger.”

And the very best way to avoid this happening in the first place is to strip
away any possible ambiguity about this policy.

Those defense lines should be clearly marked with the Palestinians warned in
advance about the existence of the lines and how to identify them.

That’s not to say that security forces should not be deployed beyond those
lines in order to prevent Palestinians from even coming close to the lines.
Just that in the event that for some reason a group of Palestinians find
that they are able to cross the line that they should be aware that doing so
would endanger their own lives.

Eyal Elad may have meant well, but his instructions are written more in a
way to provide income for defense attorneys as they argue in the calm of
quiet air conditioned court rooms as to whether the Palestinian mob
descending on a Jewish community was indeed “an immediate and real life
threatening danger.”

We have a long history in the IDF of zones being declared sterile zones in
which literally anyone who enters it risks being dispatched to Paradise -
no questions asked.

The very same policy should apply in the event of Palestinian marches and
invaders crossing the security line of the Jewish communities in Judea and
Samaria
Anything less ambiguous will only invite trouble.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il