By Uri Dan The Jewish Press August 30, 2002

It seems that there’s no country in the world like Israel - a country in the throes of such a cruel war aimed more at its civilian population than at its soldiers, who are attempting to combat murderers while their hands are tied.

First of all, there are the moral restrictions that Israel has imposed on itself in all its wars. The slogan “purity of arms,” while being essentially a contradiction in terms, has become the 11th commandment of the IDF. Acting according to this, Israel did not send its air force to bomb terrorist targets in densely populated areas, as was done by NATO in Yugoslavia and the U.S. in Afghanistan. This is a luxury reserved for the great powers.

During the Lebanon War, 20 years ago, I was preset in secret discussions in which carpet bombing intended to facilitate the IDF’s advance along the coastal route to Beirut was vetoed in order not to harm civilians, although it was known that this would be liable to increase the casualties sustained by IDF troops in their battles against Yasir Arafat’s terrorists, who then as now took cover among civilians.

The IDF acted in the same way in Jenin in April 2002 and paid the painful price. Israel avoided applying the tremendous firepower of its armored divisions to defeat Arafat’s criminal plan to escalate his terrorists war into allout war between Israel and all the Arab countries, causing UN intervention which would have eliminated the Jewish state’s right to self-defense.

Israel’s security forces, in the face of Arafat’s inhuman bomber industry, have developed over the course of the last year unique methods to combat the threat that still menaces the citizens of Israel. These methods, together with the freedom given to the IDF to act in the Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria, have drastically decreased the number of terrorist attacks, even though great danger still exists because the war is continuing.

The defense minister recently said that about 140 potential suicide bombers - men, women and youths - have been captured by Israel. Imagine how much Jewish blood has been saved just by this success.

These activities by the IDF, the Shin Bet, the border guards, and the police show that Israel has gained the upper hand in the longest war in its history. If this approach is continued, the terror will be defeated in the right place - the battlefield - despite the restrictions that the government and the security forces are imposing on themselves.

However, this success apparently bothers our professional peaceniks. After all, they have always claimed that there is no military solution to terror, only a political one. If the IDF wins once again, what will they do with their delusions that only the concessions they promised Arafat in Oslo would bring an end to the terror?

Therefore, with the encouragement of Jewish apparatchiks, statesmen, and lawyers, these Israelis are trying to place obstacles in the path of the security forces achieving success on the battlefield. They regard targeted killing - i.e., eliminating the terrorist leaders - as a “war crime,” even if, as in the case of Salah Shehadeh, civilians were unfortunately killed at the same time.

The critics of this method of killing are still impudently engaged in debating the appropriate size of the bomb required to kill Shehadeh, the head of the Hamas terrorist organization. Perhaps half a ton or a quarter of a ton would have been sufficient? When, after in-depth research, the IDF and Shin Bet officers came to the conclusion that the destruction of the homes of the terrorists families and the deportation of their relatives - who were also involved in terrorism - from Judea and Samaria to Gaza would deter additional suicide bombers, leftists Israelis encouraged these families to appeal to the Supreme Court to prevent the use of this method.

It is not surprising that Jews encourage appeals to the Supreme Court when, during the war, Yossi Beilin and MKs such as Zahava Gal-On and Colette Avital paid a visit this week to Yasir Arafat, Yasir Abed Rabbo, and their gang. Abed Rabbo is Arafat’s faithful servant who has been his accomplice in the offensive of terror and violence that he has imposed on Israel.

There is virtually no field of combat in which the Jewish apparatchiks and their collaborators in the Israeli media are not involved. Even the Palestinian neighbor can no longer be sent to a nearby house to explain in fluent Arabic that the suspected terrorist should come out and will not be harmed, even if he is a proven murderer. This is a procedure that has been used by Israel for more than 30 years.

Leftists unsuccessfully attempted to encourage the contemptible act of refusal to serve in the army. When this was still not enough to sabotage the IDF’s campaign and tie its hands, the members of the peace bloc informed IDF officers that they would collect material to be used to bring them to trial in the International War Crimes Court. The writer and avowed leftist Yigal Savinor announced in Yediot Aharonot last week that some of the methods employed by the IDF “are liable to be judged in the International War Crimes Court: from killings and deportations through the destruction of houses to the ‘neighbor procedure.’”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 10th, 2002 and is filed under opinion.