Editorial | Israel's Top Officer in the West Bank Knows the Settlers Best. Listen to His Warning of Imminent Disaster - Haaretz Editorial - Haaretz.com
The outgoing head of the army's Central Command, Yehuda Fuchs, gave his farewell speech at the Central Command headquarters in Jerusalem, at a ceremony in which he handed over the reins to his successor.
But the real audience for the accurate remarks in his speech, at the end of a three-year term full of tension, was the general public.
His message was meant for the ears of Israelis, because they must hear the truth about the danger that is running riot through the West Bank under the protection of a cowardly leaders
This is the same public to whom Defense Minister Yoav Gallant appealed when he despaired over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's disregard for the defense establishment's warnings about the threat posed by the continuation of his government's judicial overhaul, or by Netanyahu's consistent refusal to discuss postwar scenarios for the Gaza Strip and all the irresponsible talk about a military government in Gaza.
"In recent months and just this week ultranationalist criminal activity has raised its head, under the cover of the war and the lust for revenge, terrorizing Palestinian civilians who posed no threat," Fuchs said about the situation in the West Bank. He pointed an accusing finger at the leadership that has enabled Jewish terrorism.
"The local leadership and most of the religious leadership ... is deterred and cannot find the strength to act on the Jewish values they teach their children," he said, warning that this silence is dangerous. He then attacked the view that denies the very possibility of Jewish terrorism by saying that the lawbreakers have adopted "the ways of the enemy" and are "following its laws."
Israeli settlers scuffle with Israeli security forces at Netiv Haavot settlement, near Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank in 2018.Credit: Menahem KAHANA / AFP
But his warnings didn't end there. Fuchs also aimed his arrows at the government and refuted the lie told by Netanyahu that there is no difference between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and that both of them are comparable to the Nazis.
Fuchs said that Central Command's "ability to carry out its tasks ... depends on a strong, functioning Palestinian Authority with effective security agencies enforcing law and order." He made it clear that the army rejects the claims of far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who, under cover of their "concern" for security, actually seek to set the West Bank on fire and then take control of it once and for all.
Fuchs said things that much of the public has already forgotten, in part due to a rotten, inflammatory leadership that has lost its conscience.
"Concern for the welfare of working, productive Palestinian civilians ... is not only the legal responsibility of the head of command, and not only a moral value, it also serves Israel's security interests," he pointed out.
But Israel's security interests aren't what interest Benjamin Netanyahu and the gang of messianic nationalists in his government. In practice, our current government is working against ordinary Israelis and endangering their future. The public must wake up before it's too late.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel