As Army Fails to Protect Palestinians, Israeli Leaders Sympathize With Settlers
New York Times · LC · trust 26/100
Defense Minister Katz called for the military to turn over to the police the responsibility for protecting Palestinians after two West Bank families were besieged by violent settlers.
Listen · 8:44 min Share full article Israeli soldiers standing in front of the entrance of a Palestinian house besieged by Israeli settlers in the village of Qusra on Friday. Credit... Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By David M. Halbfinger and Adam Rasgon
He said he wanted to get the Israeli military out of the business of protecting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from rampaging settlers and would try to shift the responsibility to the Israeli police.
As a practical matter, only the Israel Defense Forces have the thousands of personnel needed to patrol and respond quickly to attacks in the scores of communities plagued by settler violence this year. Moreover, experts say that giving responsibility to the Israeli police would essentially put the fox in charge of the henhouse, because the police are overseen by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist settler himself.
For Mr. Katz, an ambitious member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party who hopes to succeed him as its leader, his recommendation was a political move to duck responsibility, analysts said.
Rather, for example, than letting the army use administrative detention to lock up settlers who break the law, a crucial tool previously used by the government, Mr. Katz is saying he prefers that soldiers avoid getting between settlers and Palestinians in their moments of “friction,” as some Israelis euphemistically call such attacks.
“It is not the I.D.F.’s role, and it is unable, to address the enforcement of civil matters” in the West Bank in light of the “welcome increase” in the number of Israeli settlers there, Mr. Katz said.
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