Weekly Commentary: Let's tell the truth:

Risking Israeli civilian lives to increase Palestinian mobility

Dr. Aaron Lerner
2 July 2009

The Netanyahu administration has decided to very significantly risk Israeli
civilian lives via a series of steps it has taken to increase Palestinian
mobility.

Now I am not here to judge the wisdom of the move. I am not about to claim that I have access to all the facts and considerations that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu weighed in order to reach the conclusion that significantly increasing the possibility that Israelis will die in terrorist attacks was a reasonable price to pay.

But here's the problem: It is one thing to make such a decision. It is far another to concede to the nation that the choice was knowingly made. And so, instead of telling the world - and President Barak Obama specifically - that Israeli civilian lives have been put on the line in order to increase Palestinian mobility, we end up with announcements that try to imply that there is no significant risk associated with the wholesale removal of critical roadblocks.

The result of understating the magnitude of the Israeli sacrifice is that the world - and President Obama specifically - react to these measures with "nice start - do more".

I will be cynical and say that I don't expect a politician to take the exposure of admitting for the record that he is knowingly risking the lives of his constituents. He might get someone in the IDF to leak to the press just how concerned everyone who has reviewed the measures is. But that's not going to get much bang overseas.

So let's be completely cynical: Let's at least think through what Israel should do in response to a terrorist attack. Something more than just restoring some roadblocks.

Netanyahu's team should be seriously preparing the "response file". And I'm not talking about plans for camera angles, human interest story models and headline grabbing visual aids that could be employed to cover a terrorist attack.

If Israeli lives are being risked then there damn well better be a pay off
if they die. Authorize one of the "unauthorized" outposts and dedicate it in the name of the victims?

That's one idea. Hopefully there's time to come up with more.