IDF Advises Against Removing Judea, Samaria Checkpoints 17:09 Dec 25, '06 / 4 Tevet 5767 by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

IDF Central Command strongly warns against removing checkpoint roadblocks in Judea and Samaria. The defense minister agrees, but the prime minister already made the offer to the PA's Abu Mazen.

At their meeting on Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) several gestures meant to strengthen the Fatah leader's position against the popular Islamist Hamas leadership. Among them was the removing of some of the 400 IDF checkpoints currently operational in Judea and Samaria. The prime minister told Abu Mazen he would personally see to it that the roadblocks are removed, and he issued instructions to the army, by way of Defense Minister Amir Peretz, to draft a plan for their removal.

However, at a meeting between Defense Minister Peretz, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh and IDF Central Command Officer Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh on Sunday night, Naveh expressed the military's position that the checkpoint roadblocks are necessary for preventing terrorist attacks. He strongly advised against a detailed proposal by Deputy Defense Minister Sneh to remove 27 such checkpoints.

In order to fulfill the diplomatic promise made by the prime minister, Naveh proposed an alternative of moderately easing up on the checks performed at the army roadblocks. In this way, according to the Central Command officer, the civilian population would benefit without the complete removal of a necessary security mechanism.

Defense Minister Peretz accepted Maj.-Gen. Naveh's reservations and did not recommend implementing Sneh's original proposal. Prime Minister Olmert is to formally decide on the order to remove IDF checkpoints in Judea and Samaria by Monday afternoon or evening.

The army has expressed the concern that PA terrorist organizations will take advantage of the Israeli concessions in order to transport weapons and terrorists from sector to sector in Judea and Samaria. Such freedom of movement, security sources say, makes the task of preventing and disrupting terrorist activities, as well as capturing wanted PA terrorists, more difficult.

By Monday morning, even Deputy Defense Minister Sneh was backing away from his original proposal to completely remove certain IDF checkpoints. He told Voice of Israel Radio that there were other solutions, such as "letting all cars pass through unless there are concrete warnings" of terrorist activity.

Just as Bush has 100% messed up the war on terror and America is less safe today than it was pre 9-11, his efforts to make Abbas into a leader that will seek peace will result in Hamas attacking America and American targets. So that in the end it will not be just dead Jews that result from these efforts to get rid of Hamas it will also be dead Americans.

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