IDF collecting settlers' weapons

[Behind the Aegis]

In recent weeks the IDF has been collecting hundreds of military-issued weapons in the Binyamin region in the West Bank, including weapons that were in the possession of IDF officers.

According to reports Tuesday, the only people who were given leave to keep their weapons were rapid response teams and those charged with maintaining security in the settlements.

"This is a severe blow to the security of those driving on roads in the territories, especially following the removal of roadblocks and the delivery of weapons to the Palestinian Authority," a reserve officer who lives in the West Bank told Israel Radio.

In a recent meeting with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad, Defense Minister Ehud Barak discussed a list of goodwill gestures he planned to approve for the Palestinians, including the deployment of 600 PA security personnel currently being trained in Jordan to Jenin.

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[breakaleg]

1. "driving on roads in the territories". You live on occupied land, you take your chances.

[Vegasaurus]

3. Unfortunately, any Israeli is fair game to the terrorists

whether or not they are in OT.

They can't even go for a jog or a hike without fear of being murdered.

[Shaktimaan]

4. Your comment is disturbing.

It seems like you're suggesting that blame for the attacks should lie with the settlers instead of with the attackers.

Regardless of whether you oppose settlements or not you should bear in mind that the majority of settlers are not ideological zealots but poor Israelis or recent immigrants who are merely trying to take advantage of the lower cost of living in the territories. There's a big rift between opposing settlements (as I do) and insinuating that settlers deserve to be murdered (which I do not.)

At the very least try and remember that most settlers are just innocent civilians and families. Your attitude about them being targeted seems, at the very least, to be very flippant.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. Maybe the Israeli government

could replace subsidies for living in the territories with subsidies for poor people to live in Israel proper. Maybe Israelis who care about issues of security could start pressuring their government for such a change. Forcing poor people to live in dangerous occupied territory simply in order to be able to live doesn't seem like a very good or ethical policy to me.

[LeftishBrit]

6. I agree with both you and Shaaktiman...

It would be much better for the government to provide more affordable housing in Israel itself, than to settle immigrants in dangerous territory, or make the more dangerous locations the most affordable to poorer people. And eventually IMO they will *have* to do this, and to relocate and compensate many existing settlers (if it were up to me, most of them).

But it is unfair to equate immigrants living where they could find a home with RW ideologues deliberately obstructing the peace process. And in any case, murder isn't the right solution!!

[breakaleg]

7. The reason they are there doesn't make them any less there or their presence any less illegal.

The idea that the people who stole the land need to be protected from the people they stole it from at the expense of those people, is insane. If they want to have the protection and security of living in Israel, perhaps they should live IN Israel.

Frankly, if someone stole my house and then got angry if I stood outside it on a daily basis and confronted them, that would be a bed of their own making.

[Shaktimaan]

8. whoo boy.

The reason they are there doesn't make them any less there or their presence any less illegal.

That all settlements are illegal is an opinion, not a fact. Legal scholars have argued for both sides and as of yet there hasn't been any opportunity for the question to be decided in any kind of official capacity. I believe that some, if not most, are clearly illegal. Realistically though, not all settlements are the same and I think you'd be hard pressed to argue the illegality of ALL of them. But this is irrelevant because...

even if they are all illegal the crime is one of Israel's government and not the individual settlers. Settlers who move there in accordance with Israel's laws are not acting criminally. Israel may be acting criminally by encouraging them to move there but law-abiding settlers themselves are not deserving of punishment.

The idea that the people who stole the land need to be protected from the people they stole it from at the expense of those people, is insane.

Even if you believe the entire west bank to be "Palestinian land" and all settlements as having been built on stolen land, the land was not stolen by settlers, but by Israel. The vast majority of settlers are innocent civilians moving to existing communities in accordance with their state's laws. Very few are "hilltop settlers" who actually go out and steal Palestinian owned land for themselves. But even the criminals that are doing this deserve protection from terrorism.

If they want to have the protection and security of living in Israel, perhaps they should live IN Israel.

So basically, you think that only some people are entitled to protection from war crimes?

Frankly, if someone stole my house and then got angry if I stood outside it on a daily basis and confronted them, that would be a bed of their own making.

OK. But that's not what is happening. Israelis are being randomly murdered for driving on west bank roads, not for stealing your house. And they are not being "confronted" but rather shot.

Now, whether you disagree with settlements or think they are illegal or even if you consider the average non-ideological, immigrant settler a criminal, they are all still civilians and the organized killing of them is a crime against humanity. Your basic argument is that it is "insane" to grant protection from crimes against humanity and war crimes to Israeli settlers. Or to put it differently, crimes against humanity are acceptable under certain circumstances. Nice.

Let's flip the script. After 1949 Jordan encouraged Palestinians to move into areas previously owned by Jews, such as the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. Is it equally insane to expect that these Palestinian "settlers" be protected from Jews who would now like to shoot them or should they be entitled to protection from war crimes like innocent civilians everywhere else in the world?

[LeftishBrit]

2. Good.