Observation: Will DM Barak approve construction of 5 neighborhoods in response to Itamar slaughter?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Independent Media Review & Analysis
12 March '11

Will DM Ehud Barak approve the construction of 5 neighborhoods in the West Bank to memorialize the five Israelis murdered in Itamar?

Such a move would achieve several goals:

#1. The move would turn the terrorists who murdered the Israelis from Palestinian heroes (if they are killed they will graduate to hero-martyr status) to being the jerks whose action caused Israel to build 5 neighborhoods in the West Bank.

#2. The deterrent impact of the move would be tremendous since any murder of Israelis only serves to “reward” the settlers with permission to build more neighborhoods. Announcing that the same response will be in the event of a death caused by rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip can be expected to have a chilling effect on attacks from Gaza as well.

#3. The move would serve to discourage “price tag” revenge attacks.

Yes, this move is not as easy as the focus on Palestinian incitement. But while the incitement theme may look promising, experience has shown that we can quite quickly get sucked into endless discussions as to just what constitutes “incitement” with the Palestinians pulling out their clippings with counter claims.

The White House may not celebrate that murdering Israelis leads to Israeli construction but that’s hardly “continuing the cycle of violence”.

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