israelinsider: Facing the faceless enemy

Reuven Koret
is publisher of israelinsider and CEO of Koret Communications.

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Sniper kills Jewish baby in Hebron

Facing the faceless enemy
By Reuven Koret March 27, 2001

Yesterday afternoon, a Palestinian sniper saw in the crosshairs of his rifle a ten-month-old Jewish baby in the arms of her father. He pulled the trigger and a bullet pierced the skull of Shalhevet Pass. He saw her face. No one, so far as we know, saw his.

The same with the various bombs that have been exploding all over Israel in recent days: a Herzliya restaurant over the weekend, a Petah Tikva convenience store last night, a Jerusalem mall this morning. They were rigged for detonation by calls from cellular phones. The bomber can remain far from the scene and just dial the number. Ring. Boom. Miraculously, all bombs have been discovered and dismantled, or exploded without significant injuries.

How does a nation defend itself against such faceless, remote control terror? Several alternatives are being tried. One has been the prevention of entry of Palestinians to Israel. Israeli borders are porous and penetrable, but there is a quantitative effect of reducing risk by reducing the number of potential attackers wandering in our midst.

Another alternative is to seek out faces in authority on the Palestinian side, deemed to have direct or indirect responsibility for the killing of Jews, and to eliminate them. That has been Israeli policy for the last few months, with the result that a dozen or so military commanders and shooters have been executed. It is not at all clear that this policy has a sufficient deterrent effect.

The idea of deterring by exacting a heavy penalty for violence may work to some extent, but it seems more likely to degenerate into an escalating tit-for-tat cycle of retaliation. It is clearer than ever that the Palestinian choice is for armed struggle and their issue now is how to expand the circle of violence and involve surrounding Arab states in confrontation against Israel.

The "Zionist response" to killing has historically been to build in the place of destruction. In the case of Hebron, Palestinian fire has repeatedly come from the surrounding hills of Abu Sneneh, including the bullet that killed Shalhevet and wounded her father.

Shalhevet's mother, with Rabbinical blessing and the support of her community, refuses to bury her child until the hilltop from which Palestinian snipers shoot upon Jewish children is brought under Israeli military control.

Retaking the strategic hilltop, which was handed to the Palestinian Authority by the Netanyahu government on the condition of reciprocal efforts to prevent terror, would serve a dual purpose: saving lives from future sniping from that location, and sending a deterrent message to those who believe they can liberate their land by using it to kill and terrorize innocent Jewish civilians.

The measured message of the Israeli government, elected to restore security to its citizens, to the Palestinian Authority should be clear for all to see: use the land for terror, and you lose it forever.

Citizens of Hebron have called for Abu Sneneh to be retaken by the IDF and renamed the Shalhevet Hills, as an eternal memorial to the murdered baby. There would seem to be an elementary human justification, and a practical deterrent effect, in redeeming the hills from which murderous fire came with an Israeli face and a Hebrew name.