“If you don’t have a gun, pick up a stone,” says a new Palestinian Authority campaign
Israel Today
May 15, 2020
The stone was considered a very effective weapon during the First Intifada. Now a new campaign wants to revive the myth and make the use of stones as a weapon legitimate.
The Palestinian Authority incites its citizens to attack Israeli soldiers with large stones or cinder blocks. With eye-catching imagery, the Palestinian Authority is spreading the message across the social networks: “If you don’t have a gun, pick up a stone.”
Yoni Ben Menachem, senior Middle East analyst at the Jerusalem Center, says that throwing stones is part of the strategy of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. He argued that stone-throwing attacks, protests, roadblocks and Molotov cocktails were part of what the Palestinian leader calls “peaceful resistance,” on the grounds that no firearms were used.
This incitement is already bearing fruit. On Wednesday morning, a group of Israeli soldiers were attacked with stones in the Al-Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron. A day earlier, an Israeli girl in Samaria was slightly injured by stone-throwers and Israeli vehicles were attacked with Molotov cocktails in both north and south of Jerusalem.
The stone-throwing campaign began to spread following the murder of 21-year-old Israeli soldier Amit Ben Yigal in the northern part of Samaria last weekend. The latest stone-throwing attacks appear to also be linked with the visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israel’s plan to annex parts of Judea and Samaria.
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WE NEED AN AGGRESSIVE RESPONSE AGAINST STONE-THROWERS
The next Israeli government must legislate directive that would allow security forces to use lethal force against stone-throwers. Our lawmakers own it to IDF soldiers, their families, and the Israeli public
By Lt. Col. Meir Indor
Israel Hayom
May 13, 2020
The stone-throwers' point of ambush was located between the high school and the local hospital. None of the Palestinian teachers or nurses and doctors at the time intervened. Quite the opposite, they watched in equanimity the youngsters surrounding the small car with two Jews, smashing the windows with sticks and heavy rocks, and attacking the Jews. Inside the car I was sitting with my wife, who was terrified from the sight of her husband bleeding from a heavy rock that hit his head. (This was already the third head injury from terror, so the concern was even greater.) The dilemma was whether to get out of the car and try and escape until my wife spotted an opening in the traffic jam to the emergency room.
This event didn't take place in a remote village, but rather in a busy area – the Mount of Olives, where my parents are buried. It showed the unbearable ease in which Jews are attacked on roads as part of what is called "stone terrorism". What causes this unbearable ease in which stone-throwing happens on a daily basis? It is a forgiving attitude, that can be seen in the sugarcoated term "populist terror," which we on the Israeli side have also adopted. Including both the legal system, and the security/police system.
And that's how stone throwers, who just left a school belonging to the Ministry of Education, after an intelligence effort was implemented to catch them after they were involved in yet another stoning ambush, are released because a judge did not allow more than 48 hours of interrogation. And that's how the youngsters learn that attacking Jews, citizens, and fighters, can continue. The interrogation officer said he had to let one of the parents be present during the questioning since he was a minor, who told him to stay silent. And even if they had confessed and gone to trial, the punishment would have been in accordance.
Here is the price list for stone-throwing: three to seven months. If injured by stone-throwing, the "populist" terrorist will get between one year to 18 months, if the injuries aren't permanent. Get it? The murderer of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion fighter could have been caught after an earlier stone-throwing – that didn't cause damage – and would have gotten a slap on the wrist which sends a negative message: try again until you succeed.
What can be done (besides important yet banal words of comfort)? The First Intifada – the stone intifada, was fed by the tolerance of the terror of stones and Molotov cocktails. Up until the new kid on the block came, Prof. Moshe Arens, who was appointed Minister of Defense and changed the rules of the game. Arens, who grew up and studied in the US, brought the "Wild West" rules to the "Near East." His defense doctrine that beat the rock intifada was "Don't talk, shoot!"
When he was appointed, he canceled the procedures of stone-throwing "containment" and gave new orders to open fire. A stone kills, he said.
He's right. It was after the death of the soldier Esther Ohana, who was killed from a stone to her head while driving near Dhahiriya. He ignored with his usual stubbornness the legal advice and ordered to aim towards the knees of stone-throwers and at the upper body if the man is more dangerous.
The "civilian" defense minister Arens, educated in the Betar Movement, in essence, built Jabotinsky's Iron Wall against terror and won the intifada. Meanwhile, since the Oslo Accords, the legal system grew to monstrous proportions and moved our cheese, with "containment" open-fire orders that limit the IDF. It could be seen this week when youngsters threw stones and Molotov cocktails at IDF forces who came to demolish a terrorist's home, and their jeep was burnt – without any real response.
The way to fix this must change with the horrible death of the Golani soldier and in his memory. Israeli soldiers can no longer be abandoned in their battle against terror. Israeli soldiers cannot be unnecessarily put in harm's way, only to safeguard the purity of the legal clerks.
The next Israeli government owes this to IDF fighters, their families, and the citizens of Israel. Opening fire on stone-throwers must be legislated as it is in the US, where a stone is considered a weapon.
The US has understood the devastating potential of stone-throwing and has defined it as using a lethal weapon, a clause in the US law "Use of lethal weapon" which allows for harsh sentencing and punishment. The Americans don't wink or do any favors, whether you threw a stone or shot a missile. The same offence, the same punishment. But Jews are so merciful, and whoever is merciful towards the cruel, his soldiers will be killed.
In memory of the Palmer family, the daughter of the Bitton family, the soldier Esther Ohana, Ronen Lubarsky, Amit Ben Yigal, all from murderous stones.
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