You often state the IDF", where I beleive you mean "some members of the IDF"

No, I mean the IDF- the organization. I do not believe that all members of the IDF agree with the orders they are given, nor do they all agree with the agendas of their superiors or of their government. In fact I know that some of them don't because I've read what they have to say about it. I also do not think that all members of the IDF have committed attrocities. I've posted these quotes elsewhere in the Mudcat, but I'm putting them here for you:

"IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon: "The government's policy is very harmful. There is no reason to punish the Palestinians indiscriminately."

(Ma'ariv, 29 October 2003)

Maj. Gen. (Res.) Ya'akov Or, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories from 1997-2001: "The more that the [Palestinians'] distress grows, the more the power of Hamas increases. If the Palestinian public has nothing to lose, we will lose. Rather than go to work, they will prepare explosives and ambushes, and will blow themselves up in Tel-Aviv."

Yediot Aharonot, 13 July 2001

Former Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. (Res.) Amnon Lipkin-Shahak: "IDF soldiers face hundreds and thousands of people waiting at checkpoints every day… This reality, the intolerable friction between Palestinians and IDF soldiers, creates potential suicide bombers every day."

Ma'ariv, 21 December 2001

IDF report: "Checkpoints in the Occupied Territories do not prevent the entry of terrorists."

Ha'aretz, 2 November 2001

An internal IDF report reveals that the IDF checkpoints in the Occupied Territories do not work from an operational perspective; at the same time, they harm the local population and create unnecessary friction and abuse by the soldiers."

Kol Ha'ir, 2 November 2001

M. L., Staff Sergeant (Res.), Armor Brigade, May 2002: "If a terrorist wants to, he can cross at other points along the road. We do not have enough troops to prevent it. We have implemented a policy that has done nothing to meet security needs and is intended only to make the lives of the civilian population miserable… There were situations in which we stood at the checkpoint for hours and prohibited people from crossing, and then we left, without anybody replacing us. Anybody who wanted to could cross."

Lt. Col. Dov Zadka, head of the Civil Administration, 1998-2002: "I do not like this situation. It encourages large-scale hatred over the long term… Two weeks ago, I saw a father walking with two sacks and carrying a five-year-old boy on his shoulders. Stumbling behind him was the mother with what may have been a newborn infant. It was mid-afternoon and they were walking from the junction to their home. Tell me, how does this help? What good does it do? I can picture my wife walking like that with our daughter, shuffling through the mud. I swear, it gives me the chills."

B'Mahaneh (IDF magazine), 28 December 2001

Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon Chief of Staff: "I fear that even if we win the war, in the end we will not be able to look at ourselves in the mirror. We have a problem. All this fighting is not good for our health, from the perspective of our moral strength. A soldier who is ordered to stand at a checkpoint, where it is easy and tempting to loot does not add to our moral strength."

Yediot Aharonot, 4 July 2003


Here is an interview with Ami Ayalon, who headed the Insraeli Shin Bet (internal security) from 1996 to 2000 during the Prime Ministerships of Benjamin Netanayahu and Ehud Barak.

http://www.ajds.org.au/intifada/ayalon.htm

Here is an excerpt:

"AA: We say the Palestinians behave like "madmen," but it is not madness but a bottomless despair. As long as there was a peace process -- the prospect of an end to the occupation -- Arafat could maneuver, incite or repress violence to better negotiate. When there is no more peace process, the more terrorists one kills the more strength their camp gains.

Yasser Arafat neither prepared nor triggered the Intifada. The explosion was spontaneous, against Israel, as all hope for the end of occupation disappeared, and against the Palestinian authority, its corruption, its impotence. Arafat could not repress it. The peace process is what allowed Arafat to be seen as the head of a national liberation movement rather than a collaborator of Israel. Without it, he can fight neither against the Islamists nor against his own base. The Palestinians would end up hanging him in the public square."


I am not condoning any behavior on the part of any people who kill civilians. I am looking at cause and effect and determining who I think is the most responsible for the ongoing situation, and who is in the best position to end the violence.