To shoot rock throwers, or not, that is the Israeli question
September 27, 2015
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This Thursday Israel’s 10-member security cabinet unanimously voted to approve a series of tougher measures against Palestinian rock and firebomb throwers.
The new measures are being adopted following a heated debate this past week over what the government and police can and can’t legally do (shoot them with live fire? lock them in jail for longer periods? penalize the parents?) to crack down on Palestinian youth who hurl stone and petrol bombs onto highways and city streets with increasing impunity.
There are no easy answers here, or simple solutions.
According to experts familiar with these cases, rock-throwing is mostly being perpetrated by unorganized and leaderless young men, making it hard for Israel’s security and intelligence forces to prevent impending attacks.
These angry Palestinian kids probably aren’t usually receiving direct orders to terrorize Jews. But they’re acting within an ideological environment that encourages and condones these attacks. In addition to incitement by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, Israeli Arab leaders incite violence by spreading falsehoods about the Al Aqsa Mosque: