An anti-tank missile hit an IDF bulldozer in the western section of the Israel-Lebanon border, killing an IDF soldier and injuring a second. The attack came as the soldiers were clearing roadside bombs, planted by Hezbollah. According to Haaretz, the bombs were discovered two weeks ago, but their removal was delayed due to weather conditions. A senior Lebanese army source said that the bulldozer had crossed into Lebanese territory.
Major General Benny Gantz, head of GOC Northern Command, said the bulldozer crossed an Israeli security fence to clear the bombs planted by Hezbollah but operated short of the international frontier. He placed responsibility for Hezbollah's operations on Syria and Lebanon, and said that the people on the other side of the northern border “should be worried.” Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz is to convene a special meeting of senior security officials this morning, to weigh Israel's response to the attack.
MKs move to forbid Yigal Amir from marrying
It was revealed yesterday that Yigal Amir, who assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, is engaged and is due to file a request with the Prisons Authority to marry. The parliamentary reaction to the reports was immediate. Labour Knesset member Eitan Cabel yesterday submitted a bill that would forbid convicted murderers serving a life sentence from marrying during their time in jail. Another Knesset member, Etti Livni (Shinui), tried to table a bill which would deny the right to marry to any person convicted of murdering an elected official for political or ideological reasons. However, her party, which is part of the government coalition, opposed the move on the grounds that it would mean passing a law aimed at one specific person.
The Chief of the Prisons service, Yaakov Granot, yesterday held a press conference in which he announced his intention to disqualify in advance any request by Yigal Amir to marry. However, his views were immediately challenged by his own legal advisor, and by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). “Every individual has the right to marry, including prisoners,” ACRI's legal adviser said yesterday.
Comment and Opinion:
The Times (20/01): “I served in the infantry division of the IDF for three years, and spent two of them in Gaza and the West Bank. The experience changed me completely. I was just 18 when I joined up. I was a boy, and believed so strongly in peace. I was ready to give the Palestinians anything they wanted, just to have peace. Now, at 22, having seen many terrible things, I still believe in peace, and am willing to sacrifice a great deal for it, but I’ve lost my trust in the Palestinians. I know there are many good ones who do not support the suicide bombings, but the radical faction that does will never be content. They do not want land, they want the Jews and Israelis to cease to exist.”
“Every night we had some kind of event — an attempted infiltration, bombs, shooting. They were trying to get to us all the time. I could have been killed many times. It is a fact of life in the territories, and something one is constantly aware of.”
“These days my feelings towards the Palestinians are very mixed. One day we were searching a house. A little blonde girl was there. She was so small and sweet. I searched my pockets for candy and gave her one. She pretended to eat it, and then held out her hand for another. It was such a nice moment, but it broke my heart. I flip from one emotion to another. I sympathise with the Palestinians, and feel sorry for their suffering. I feel remorseful and guilty. Then a day later a friend explodes through a wall, and everything flips back. Sometimes they behave like animals. I have seen terrorists put their children in front of them while they are shooting, knowing that we won’t shoot back — what father would put his own child in danger? Or an ambulance comes, and everyone stops shooting, then a terrorist leaps out of the back and kills someone.”
Ha'aretz (20/01): “Yitzhak Rabin was not murdered by a monster; his killer is not freak of nature. The act was committed by a man with a name, a face, an address, who carried out his crime for ideological reasons. For this crime, he was tried and punished by the cold, objective code of laws of the State of Israel.
Any attempt to dress up this act in mythology or shroud it in mystery - however rhetorically convenient for politicians on the left or right - only misses the point and makes the already terrible consequences even worse. And this applies all the more so to attempts to bend or change the laws to fit a specific criminal, which only ends up rewarding him further.
With all the tangle of emotions this murder arouses in us, and the catastrophic outcome it has had on our daily lives, Rabin's murderer must be subject to the same laws and procedures employed by the Prison Service in its handling of every convicted murderer. It is part of the Israeli national normalcy that Yitzhak Rabin symbolized and his killer sought to disrupt.”
Efraim Halevy (Yediot Ahronot, 20/01): “What we need at a time like this is a thorough and painful clarification of our overall strategy with regard to the Palestinians. It would be appropriate for the cabinet to convene soon and hear professional assessments from intelligence and security agencies on the full scope of the “situation”. Nearly a year has gone since the current government was sworn in, and in that time neither the cabinet nor the government has heard a systematic and full situation update! Instead of taking hasty decisions on the fence and on “going to the Hague”, it is suggested that the government look at the whole range of our relations with the Palestinians and decide where it wants to take this heavy and overloaded cart.
The government will find that Israel has a number of levers, strengths and ways of working that will give us back the initiative, including our credibility which has been so harmed, both in the region and in the capitals of the world, especially Washington. This is almost the last minute to collate all the information and the assessments, to allow the government of Israel to hear it, look at it, consider the range of options and make policy.
If they don’t do this, the Palestinians will continue to set the agenda, and to a great extent, its results. Israeli envoys will continue to rush between the capitals of the world seeking full support, some support, de-escalation in the face of this or that political threat, and Israel will go to Washington not as a strong ally, credible and secure, but as yesterday’s partner whose stock is down, begging for political hand-outs in order to deal with its hardships.
But hold on! It’s not too late. When is the cabinet meeting? When will the information be presented? When will the government assume its responsibilities?”
Headlines:
E-mail this to a
friend