Ministers decide to beef up policing of West Bank settlers

[msmcghee]

Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/819146.html

By Amos Harel and Nadav Shragai

More police officers will be assigned to areas of the West Bank with a high incidence of illegal activity by Jewish settlers, and the use of restraining order against right-wing extremists who are suspected of violence against Palestinians will be increased, a new ministerial committee decided yesterday.

The panel, created two weeks ago to deal with law enforcement in the West Bank and headed by Defense Minister Amir Peretz, held its first session yesterday. Also participating were ministers Tzipi Livni, Avi Dichter and Roni Bar-On and representatives of the Israel Defense Forces, the police, the Shin Bet security service and the State Prosecutor's Office.

According to the resolution adopted by the forum: "Law enforcement is not subject to interpretation; we are committed to creating immediate tools to carry out the law as written." Among other things, the ministers resolved to guarantee adequate budgets and staffing levels for police in the West Bank and to post officers on long-term assignments, after giving them appropriate training, in areas of significant friction between settlers and Palestinians.

Human rights organizations criticized the decision to increase the use of restraining orders against violent settlers. "Issuing restraining orders against settlers violates their basic rights. are permitted only in rare cases when there are no alternative, less injurious means," said an official at B'Tselem. The group also proposed that soldiers be given explicit instructions to intervene when settlers assault Palestinians.

(snip)

[Tom Joad]

1. Credit for any action in regard to West Bank Settlers/terrorists goes to

groups like:

Yesh Din
www.yesh-din.org

Christian Peacemaker Teams
http://www.cpt.org
(great photo of their work on their home page, check it out)

The Tel Rumeida Project
http://www.telrumeidaproject.org/index.html

International Solidarity Movement
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/


These criminal actions have been ignored for years, but because of the work of these NGO's is there anything being done, Israel could not tolerate the negative publicity. It remains to be seen if anything actually changes on the ground.

[The Magistrate]

2. Serious Action Against These People, Ma'am, Is Long Over-Due

Without knowing details of the "restraining orders", it is impossible to comment on their efficacy and justice: here in the U.S. similarly named means have been used to good effect against street gangs on occassion, but that could be an example of apples and oranges.

The Bet-Salem people make a very sound suggestion, though, that the soldiers of the occupation be specifically instructed to act against violence by the settlers. Put bluntly, the methods employed should be exactly those used to suppress violence by militant Arab Palestinian bodies in the same areas.

[msmcghee]

3. Yes, I'm not sure about Israeli law and . .

. . the use restraining orders or if they are the best tool to use in this case but I generally agree that Israel has much to gain from a scrupulous even-handedness in the situation.

In another thread I posited that perhaps Israel's strategy is to eventually offer the Palestinians something in exchange for peace that they would value more than just land - which has seemed insufficient so far - that is, land without Jewish religious fanatics on it.

If such a thing were true I wonder if perhaps their approach has been to augment the reasons why the Palestinians would develop an even more extreme hatred of the settlers than would be caused simply by their existence there. And if so, perhaps the Israelis now realize that they have carried that too far.

I am not campaigning for this theory BTW - just speculating about what seems like very puzzling and counterproductive behavior on the part of the GOI regarding the settlers on the WB.