"Officials here say many of the tactics and technologies used to fight Palestinian terror are being adapted for use against a small minority of Jewish extremists willing to die to defend what they believe is their god-given right to live in lands that most of the world considers occupied territory."
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=988943&C=mideast Posted 07/25/05 12:01 Israeli Military Prepares To Confront Jewish Terror Security on High Alert as Pullout Nears By BARBARA OPALL-ROME, GUSH KATIF, Gaza Strip As the clock ticks down to the August withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, Israeli security forces are tightly sprung on highest alert, not only against an anticipated surge in Palestinian attacks, but against terrorism by fellow Jews fiercely opposed to the evacuation plan. Officials here say many of the tactics and technologies used to fight Palestinian terror are being adapted for use against a small minority of Jewish extremists willing to die to defend what they believe is their god-given right to live in lands that most of the world considers occupied territory. Nightmare scenarios envisioned by the military and the Shin Bet internal security service include shootings, bombings, hostage-taking by resisters who barricade themselves in booby-trapped strongholds, and attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or members of his government. Security officials have intensified surveillance of militant Jews who may seek to sabotage Sharon�s so-called disengagement plan by attacking Islamic holy sites. �It�s hard for people to understand that there is a small but very dangerous number of Jewish ultra-extremists who have no qualms about killing fellow Jews,� Avi Dichter, the recently retired Shin Bet director, said July 13. Dichter said Israeli security agencies have deployed all relevant counterterror tools and methods, including the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, to enhance intelligence and early warning of possible Jewish terror threats. �We�re not sparing any efforts, money and tools to deal with this growing threat,� Dichter said. �These radical hardliners are sure there are two main ways to block the disengagement. One is to attack the mosques on the Temple Mount and the other way is by attacking the prime minister.� According to the former Shin Bet chief, security forces are even preparing to confront the formerly unthinkable prospect of a Jewish suicide bomber. �Suicide is not a concept limited only to the Palestinian or Islamic realm. We�re not ruling out a Jewish ultra-extremist fanatic who may seek to die with the Philistines,� Dichter said, invoking the words of the Biblical Samson as he caused the Philistine temple to come crashing down. Hezi Kalo, a former Shin Bet official specializing in Jewish terror threats, stressed that most of those opposed to disengagement are patriotic citizens who will limit themselves to nonviolent protests against what they truly believe is a betrayal by their government in general and by Sharon in particular, a leading champion of Israel�s settlement enterprise. Nevertheless, he estimates there are �tens� of hardcore Jewish operatives, many of them veterans of elite Israeli fighting units, with the capabilities and the intention of carrying out politically motivated terrorist acts. �Jewish terror is a significant strategic threat no less than the threat of Palestinian and Islamic terror,� said Kalo, now a research fellow at the Herzliya-based Institute for Counter-Terrorism. Provocation and Confrontation In recent months, potentially violent extremists from Hebron and other militant West Bank hotbeds have implanted themselves in settlements slated for evacuation by Israeli security forces. Government sources and residents of some of these communities say many of the newcomers are armed, well-stocked with ammunition, and associated with either a breakaway messianic ultra-religious movement or the outlawed Kahane Chai, a group featured on the U.S. State Department�s annual list of terror organizations. Simha Weiss, a 16-year resident of Shalev, a tiny settlement in the southern tip of Gaza, insists most longtime residents of the cluster of Jewish communities, known here as Gush Katif, would never think of provoking violence against Israeli evacuation forces. �These soldiers are like my own children,� she said. �I think I speak for most when I say we will never lift a hand against them, nor will they against us.� Nevertheless, the 47-year-old mother of six said she feared that events could lead to bloodshed. �I�m afraid there will be very tough violence. It will be Jew against Jew � and it will be the Kahanists who will be to blame,� Weiss said, referring to the outlawed group of followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. A day after Sharon declared Gush Katif a closed military zone, Weiss said July 14 she was counting on security forces to arrest local hooligans before events spiraled out of control. �Ninety percent of the people in Gush Katif are very loving and law-abiding. They don�t want violence. But the other 10 percent, they are looking for trouble.� While extremists and security forces are likely to play an intense and possibly violent game of cat-and-mouse in the Gaza Strip until all of the roughly 9,000 residents are evacuated, one Shin Bet man said colleagues are girding for even greater challenges in the northern West Bank settlement of Sa-Nur. There, in the biblical hills of Samaria � unlike the flat, coastal area of the Gaza Strip, where militants are relatively easily monitored and contained � security forces are preparing for violent action bordering on guerrilla warfare. Since early spring, 30 families and another 25 young men have moved to Sa-Nur to �assist us in our fight against the government�s expulsion plan,� said community spokeswoman Miriam Adler. By the end of August, Adler expects 10,000 to 20,000 more to join what she acknowledges could devolve into armed resistance. �We won�t initiate any violence, but developments in the field will depend on the military,� Adler told visiting reporters July 5. The current plan of resistance calls for groups merely to hide in the hills, barricade themselves in structures and otherwise �drive them crazy,� Adler said. But, she warned, �If security forces will start to beat pregnant women or pull babies out of mothers� arms, things may spiral out of control.� Adler said residents have no intention of turning in their weapons to security forces, insisting that they need weaponry for self-defense to fight the enemy. When asked if she considered the Israeli military the enemy, Adler replied, �the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is our opponent; not our enemy. The fact that Ariel Sharon is sending the IDF in here against us as if we are terrorists has turned the Army into our opponent � and we hope by their behavior that the IDF does not become our enemy.� The Plan For months, Israeli security forces have been undergoing rigorous operational and psychological training for the pending pullout, with workshops and live field exercises throughout the chain of command. Officers and troops have been instructed on how to remain calm in the face of insults, curses and physical abuse that may be inflicted by civilians refusing to evacuate voluntarily. Similarly, they are schooled in the most effective, yet deferential ways to enter homes and physically remove women, the elderly, children and babies without causing unnecessary damage to pride or possessions. In a recent background briefing, a colonel in the Israeli Police said some 8,000 troopers � nearly one for every settler slated for evacuation in the initial Gaza Strip operation � will serve as the first circle in a six-circle, IDF-commanded joint service military-police operation. The front-line force has primary responsibility for removing unwilling settlers from their homes, and will require about 17 troopers for each home, including female officers who will be assigned to handle mothers and daughters refusing to leave. Police will be reinforced by a second circle of at least two IDF brigades, all of whom will be unarmed to prevent unintended firing of weapons that could ignite panic and retaliatory fire from militant settlers. �We don�t want to use anything other than our bare hands against our own people,� Maj. Gen. Israel Ziv, IDF director of operations, said in a late June interview. However, at least another two brigades of fully armed rapid reaction forces will be deployed nearby to suppress any violence between resisters and unarmed security forces. If settlers open fire, soldiers will not be precluded from defending themselves, according to Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, IDF chief of General Staff. �If we come to that, I don�t intend for IDF soldiers to be like ducks in a shooting gallery,� Halutz told reporters in mid-June. In parallel, several IDF divisions supported by air and sea power will form the fourth circle, ready to respond to rocket, mortar or terror attacks by Palestinian groups seeking to take advantage of the chaos likely to accompany disengagement operations. Operations associated with the fifth and sixth circles are already under way by thousands of IDF and police personnel charged with isolating the Gaza Strip from sympathizers seeking merely to show solidarity, as well as militants with a violent agenda. Oded Tyrah, the former deputy commander of Israel�s Southern Army, who helped manage Israel�s 1982 withdrawal from the Sinai, said calm and professional implementation of evacuation plans by security forces should minimize the risk of internecine bloodshed. The retired brigadier general said he�s sick and tired of hearing about nightmare scenarios regarding the upcoming pullout, which only lends undue credibility to �marginal criminals and hooligans� waging psychological warfare against a nerve-frayed Israeli public. Likewise, he said politicians, security officials, community activists and spiritual leaders need to tone down their rhetoric and begin to think about the day after. �Everyone is posturing to promote their own agenda � and it�s doing nobody any good. After the evacuation, we�ll have to live with these people and fight alongside them against the real enemy. So it�s imperative that our government and our security establishment accomplish this mission with utmost determination and professionalism, but also with compassion.� E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12h4qus77/M=362329.6886306.7839369.3040540/D=groups/S=1705323667:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1122779657/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992 ">Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back!</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. 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