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Tyrants Tremble
| Steve Shalom | March 9, 2011 |
Since the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, tyrants everywhere have been trembling, as have their backers in Washington, Paris, and Tel Aviv.
Now Haaretz reports that the Israel Defense Forces (sic) are updating their plans for dealing with massive, nonviolent protests in the Occupied Territories.
Interestingly, IDF officers seem much more worried about a nonviolent struggle than a violent one. This shouldn't be surprising given that Israel maintains a huge advantage in the means of violence, but a huge disadvantage in the tools of moral suasion.
"Senior officers now serving, or who once served, in the West Bank say they have long felt there is no way to effectively contend with a widespread, nonviolent civil uprising. 'There is nothing for it if something like what happened in Tunisia happens here,' said one high-ranking officer serving in the [Judea and Samaria] division [of the IDF]."
The article quotes other officers thinking Palestinian protests won't remain nonviolent, but of course this depends on how violence is defined.
"The IDF considers any attempt to damage a checkpoint or a security fence as a violent act, and will use force and such means as teargas and rubber-tipped bullets against all such actions."
Translation: in order to protect a fence that has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice, the IDF will attack protesters. And needless to say, such operations have sometimes killed protesters in the past.
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