The Jerusalem Post
November 10, 2000, Friday
Better than bullets
Arieh O'Sullivan
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THE IDF has long disliked the police role with which it has been burdened since the Six Day War. The apolitical nature of this task, called in military lingo OOTW for "operations other than war," compromises the army and has forced it to seek out new strategies and weaponry that will change the traditional nature of fighting - since blood, guts, and especially death are no longer politically acceptable.
At the Ephraim Brigade headquarters in Kedumim, the hatzatzit, or gravel-throwing half-track, sits in a parking lot, weeds slowly creeping up over its treads. The IDF used its technical ingenuity a decade ago to come up with this contraption against stone-throwers in the original intifada. But it is now an anachronism, as today's stone- throwers are also armed. And, in a bizarre twist of logic, the IDF has concluded that you don't fight armed Palestinians with stones.
The IDF's current non-lethal arsenal consists largely of such basic weapons as tear gas and rubber-coated bullets. (The plastic bullets popular during the intifada have been dropped, since they proved to be as lethal as regular bullets and highly inaccurate to boot.) According to a senior commander in the West Bank, one scenario the IDF expects, and fears, is a massive assault by unarmed civilians on a Jewish settlement. The IDF (and no doubt the Palestinians) saw this tactic used successfully in Lebanon by Hizbullah forces last spring - and it led to the swift collapse of the SLA, which held its fire.
The IDF plans to meet such a "peaceful" assault with unarmed Border Police who will physically bar them from entering the settlements. Nearby will be armed troops ready to use crowd dispersal weapons (tear gas and rubber-coated bullets), and prepared to step in with live weapons if these fail.
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