'Israel must learn to live with Palestinian terrorism,' former general says

"There isn't anything that we can do tomorrow morning," former national security adviser Yaakov Amidror told Army Radio.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: NOVEMBER 13, 2015 19:21
Scene from terror shooting near Hebron - Nov. 13
A former top defense aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Army Radio on Friday that Israel "unfortunately will have to learn to live with a situation" in which its civilians are targeted by Palestinian gunmen on West Bank roadways.
Speaking just hours after a deadly shooting claimed the lives of an Israeli father and son in the southern West Bank, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, the former national security adviser to Netanyahu, said that any talk of "a magic solution" - be it the death penalty for terrorists or increased construction in West Bank settlements - is futile.
"There isn't anything that we can do tomorrow morning," Amidror said. "This isn't like what we experienced [during the second intifada] in 2002, when we had many more deaths. In one month, we had over 100 killed, but it was clear what had to be done."
Amidror was referring to Operation Defensive Shield, the large-scale re-occupation of Palestinian areas in the West Bank following a rash of deadly suicide bombings in a number of Israeli cities.
"There is no silver bullet, that one thing that we can do so that the problem will be solved," Amidror told Army Radio. "I hear my colleagues in the Jewish settler leadership saying, 'Let's build.' Okay, if someone believes that the right to do politically is to build, then they will think that whether there are attacks or not. But it's an illusion to think that building will stop the attacks."
Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman as well as other figures on the Right have proposed that Israel adopt the death penalty for nationalist-motivated crimes, but the former head of research at Military Intelligence says that such a policy would be fruitless.
"The death penalty won't deter terrorists," Amidror said. "The State of Israel doesn't have that one grand thing that it can do. There is no magic solution. Unfortunately, we are going to have to get used to this situation."
"It will take time, but the other side will eventually understand that it won't gain a thing," he said.
Liberman blamed government policy on Friday for encouraging acts of violence like the shooting death near Hebron.
"The attack is a direct consequence of the government's decision to pursue a policy of containment rather than a policy of vanquishing [terrorism]," Liberman said.
The former foreign minister accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon of "granting immunity" to  Hamas leaders in Gaza "who praise the murder of Jews and send Palestinians to clash with IDF troops along the Gaza border fence."
"That's not the way to fight terrorism," Liberman said.


Related Tags
yaakov amidror