Q&A: Arrest at a Palestinian Home
Arrest at a Palestinian Home
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’m a reservist soldier serving in a unit in Judea and Samaria.
Last week, one night, we went out on an arrest operation in a Palestinian village.
At a certain point, after breaking into the house and isolating the suspect (according to a Shin Bet indication involving weapons trafficking) from the rest of the household, one of the commanders told me to guard the suspect’s family.
I entered the room and saw a young mother sitting on the bed with a tormented look on her face, surrounded by four small children, around ages 4–10, staring at me in fear after about 15 soldiers had just burst into their home in the middle of the night. Honestly, I found this situation very hard, and I couldn’t look them in the eye; I looked away.
Meanwhile, the other soldiers turned the house upside down—taking everything out of the closets, looking under the beds, tearing open bags of clothes and throwing them on the floor—and when we found nothing, we took the father away in handcuffs, packed up, and moved on to the next house, with no weapons and with the house completely wrecked.
I’m right-wing in my views, but I left there with a somewhat bitter taste. It also got me thinking: aren’t we, with our own hands, raising the next terrorist? Those children who woke up terrified in the middle of the night will surely remember this for many years, and who knows how much it will affect them and make them want to murder or carry out an attack.
On the other hand, I know rationally that it was justified, because he was a suspect and a search had to be carried out, though it’s not clear what the level of suspicion was (and as mentioned, we found nothing).
I also reflected on the well-known fact that Arabs in Judea and Samaria carry out more attacks than Israeli Arabs, and in my opinion it is seemingly for the same reason: Israeli Arabs have a future, a livelihood, and a state that recognizes them, so they have something to lose and perhaps also some gratitude; whereas their Palestinian relatives have no future, barely any work (the number of illegal entrants looking for work in Israel that we encountered in our sector is quite high, and that’s only the ones we manage to catch), not much to lose, and over the years all that accumulates is anger and bitterness—so the option of becoming a terrorist comes much more easily.
I’d be glad to hear the Rabbi’s opinion on this.
Answer
The experience is very familiar to me. I went through it too, and it is indeed difficult. There is room to make things as easy for them as possible, but not at the cost of failing to carry out the mission.
As for the impact, it is clear that there is such an effect, although I am not at all sure that a gentler search would not also produce terrorists, and in any case a search has to be conducted. But irrespective of the outcome, and purely from a moral standpoint, the mission should be carried out in the gentlest way possible—but it should be carried out. If there is a way to verify whether it is really necessary, then of course that is preferable. As for the emotional experience, one has to overcome it and let reason lead rather than emotion.