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Palestinian house arrest

שו”תCategory: moralPalestinian house arrest
asked 3 weeks ago

Hello Rabbi,
I am a reserve soldier and serve in a unit in Judea and Samaria.
Last week, we went out one night to a detention center in a Palestinian village.
At a certain point after breaking into the house and isolating the suspect (according to the Shin Bet’s indication of arms trafficking) from the rest of the family, one of the commanders told me to protect the suspect’s family members.
I arrived at the room, saw a young mother sitting on the bed with a tormented look, and surrounded by four small children, about 4-10 years old, looking at me in fear, after about 15 soldiers had just burst into their home in the middle of the night. The truth is, I had a hard time with this situation and couldn’t look them straight in the eye, I looked away.
Meanwhile, the other soldiers ransacked the house to the point of taking everything out of the closets, under the beds, tearing up bags of clothes and throwing them on the floor. When we found nothing, we handcuffed the father of the family, folded ourselves up, and went to the next house, without weapons and with the house completely turned upside down.
I am right-wing in my views, but I left with a somewhat bitter taste. It also made me reflect, aren’t we raising the next terrorist with our own hands? After all, those children who woke up at night terrified will surely remember this for many years to come, and who knows how much it will influence them to want to murder or carry out an attack.
On the other hand, I know that in theory it was justified, because he is a suspect and a search needs to be conducted, although it is not clear what the level of suspicion is (and as mentioned, we found nothing).
I also reflected on the well-known fact that Judea and Samaria Arabs carry out more attacks than Israeli Arabs, and in my opinion it is for the same reason. Israeli Arabs have a future, a livelihood, and a state that recognizes them, and therefore they have something to lose, and perhaps even gratitude, while their Palestinian family members have no future, barely any work (the number of Jewish workers looking for work in Israel, and we managed to catch them in the sector, is quite high, and that’s just what we manage to catch). There’s nothing much to lose, and over the years, only anger and resentment accumulate, so the path of becoming a terrorist becomes an easier option.
I would love to hear what the Rabbi thinks about this?


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 3 weeks ago
The experience is very familiar to me. I went through it too, and it is indeed difficult. There is room to make it as easy as possible for them, but not at the cost of not completing the task. Regarding the effect, it is clear that there is such an effect, although I am not at all sure that a gentle search will not produce terrorists, and after all, a search must be done anyway. But regardless of the result, but purely for moral reasons, the task must be carried out as gently as possible, but it must be carried out. If there is a way to verify whether it is indeed necessary, then of course it is worth doing so. Regarding the experience, one must overcome and let reason lead, not emotion.

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