by Omer Rachamim, Director-General of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, translated by Hillel Fendel.
Catching murderous terrorists cannot be our ultimate objective. Uprooting terrorism must be.
Prime Minister Netanyahu's announcement to the press last night – just
after the terrorist murder of Tze'ala Gez in the Shomron as she was on her way,
with her husband, to give birth to their 4th child – tells the whole
story.
This is what he wrote: "I trust that the security forces, in
this case as well, will quickly get to the murderers and bring them, and all who
aided them, to justice."
What's wrong with that announcement? Don't we want the long arm of
our security network to pursue, catch, and kill if possible the vile murderers,
as they general do so effectively and quickly?
Of course. But as we so often see, such actions simply do not
prevent the next terrorist attack.
So what then must we do?
1. A significant and damaging blow must be dealt to the entire
expanse in which the murderer lives. We need not waste time on chasing and
finding him; his village must rather be destroyed. The entire space in which he
lives and walks around and breathes is all about terrorism – from the graffiti
on the walls, through the schools that teach the glories and importance of terrorism,
and to the mosques in which terrorism is preached and prayed for. All of these,
and more, must be systematically dismantled and destroyed.
How is this to be done? It's very straightforward: The populace
must be given notice that they must evacuate within x amount of hours, or else face
the consequences. Instead of awakening in their beds the next morning, the
residents of the Arab villages of Burakin and A-Dik should have been exiled
from their homes and woken up the next morning in tents, just like their
brethren in Gaza.
Sounds too extreme? Speak to Col. Avichai Edrei, the IDF Spokesman
in Arabic. His Twitter account is about to explode from the many "Evacuate
Now!" announcements he has issued. Just as these worked quite well in Gaza,
they will work perfectly well in Judea and Samaria as well.
2. The concept of "maintaining the fabric of life for the
general populace" must disappear, once and for all. This laundered and inadequate
phrase paves the way for nothing more nor less than placing the very lives of
hundreds of thousands of Jewish residents of Yesha on the line every time they
take a drive. Terrorists are simply not afraid to shoot at them, nor is it a
difficult mission to do so.
It's unbelievably insane how easy it is for the same Arabs who are
not permitted to enter Raanana or Afula to wait in traffic jam alongside
residents of Maaleh Adumim, or to get within spitting distance of the homes of
residents of Ariel.
It should be that Israeli citizens use a network of comfortable
and safe roads, while the Arabs of Judea and Samaria use a separate system.
What's amazing is that these networks already exist.
In addition, the roadblocks and checkpoints must return as a
regular feature to the lives of the Arabs in Yesha. For them to be able to travel
freely means they can easily escape from place to place without being caught or
even stopped.
3. When a terrorist attack occurs or is attempted, the punishment
must match not the results, but the intent. If there happen not to be any dead
Israelis as a result of a given attack, this does not mean that the terrorist
infrastructure responsible for the attempt should not be dismantled. For
instance, in the case of the most recent murder, three similar attacks took
place in the same area; thank G-d, none of them ended with dead Jews. But the
Israeli reactions to these attempted murders were on a minor scale – leading
directly, apparently, to the horrific murder of a young mother on her way to
give birth.
4. Military actions are important, but they are not the primary
element; our diplomatic actions are much more critical. Unlike what the
left-wing camp claims, terrorism is not based on "despair," but
rather on "hope." The terrorists continue to hope that they will be
able to rid us from our land – not just from Yesha, but from Haifa, Acre,
Jaffa, the Coastal Plane, and everywhere else.
There is only one way to cut down this hope – and that is by
instituting Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. When we delay and hesitate,
as we have been doing for several years on this issue, we are actually telling
the Arab enemy that they can realistically continue to "hope" that we
will not be here forever – and that terrorism can only help their cause. When
we vacillate, we are saying that we have not yet really decided that we are
here to say. The time is long past due to make it eminently clear: "We're
not going anywhere."
So why are these steps not being taken? There is one answer: Oslo.
Most unfortunately for all of us, Israel's security establishment is still
addicted to the "Oslo drug" – and refuses all treatment to help
de-program and de-tox itself.
The "Oslo drug" causes dangerous hallucinations, in
which Israeli security cooperation with a terrorist entity known as the PA's
"security apparatus" is seen as having security value.
If we would rid ourselves of the Oslo conception, enabling a
positive "fabric of life" for the Arabs in Yesha would be seen not as
a goal in and of itself, but as a tool we must use in order to decrease
terrorism. If we do not take this approach, but instead continue to make
believe that superficial quiet for a few weeks at a time is genuine quiet – it
explodes in our faces.
Mr. Prime Minister, and the other Cabinet ministers: Catching
terrorists is important. But changing our conceptions is much more so. The Oslo
Accords were, and are, a catastrophe. It's time we wean ourselves, cancel them,
and declare sovereignty.