The problem in Judea and Samaria is not a lack of authority – but a lack of courage to exercise it | Moshe Karadi

About two months ago, together with my colleagues from the Commissioners' Forum, I joined a tour of the northern Samaria region led by Major General (res.) Mendi Or. We, who thought we had seen it all, returned shocked. We discovered that in our region there is a parallel universe where Israeli citizens carry out what is closest to ethnic cleansing — behavior that is illegal, unethical, immoral, and also not Jewish.

Since the siege imposed on the town of Qusra by Jewish terrorists, I have been wondering whether the impotence demonstrated by army commanders stems from a lack of professionalism and knowledge about the areas of responsibility in the region, or from fear of the political echelon. I was even more astonished to discover, after the Minister of Defense's statement to transfer responsibility to the police, how unfamiliar he is with the existing legal situation and the areas of responsibility of the IDF.

So I state that with one phone call between the Chief of Staff and the Police Commissioner, within 6 hours all the rioters will be arrested and the siege will be lifted!

I have taken it upon myself to help decision-makers understand basic concepts pro bono.

Following the decision of the Shamgar Commission, which dealt with the massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs, it was decided to establish the Judea and Samaria District in the police, whose role is to enforce law and order in Judea and Samaria. The decision gained further validity with the Oslo Accords after the division of the territory into Areas A, B, and C. The IDF, through the Commander of the Central Command, is the sovereign and bears overall responsibility for everything that happens in Judea and Samaria, and especially in the areas of security, protection of the settlements, and the fight against terrorism. The police bear responsibility for investigating criminal incidents and enforcing law and order among the Jewish residents. When did a dispute arise between the IDF and the police? When it came to large-scale public disorder that the police did not have enough force to handle.

This matter was addressed by the Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, who in 2005 published the Attorney General's directive regarding the enforcement of law and order in Judea and Samaria.

Police Commissioners, myself included, did not like to allocate forces to a district that is not within our area of responsibility. The Chiefs of Staff refused to see the task of law enforcement as part of the army's responsibility.

Whoever reads the procedure and acts according to it does not need any directive from the Minister of Defense, nor from the Prime Minister. Everything is clear, firm, and exists in the joint procedure. During my tenure as Commissioner, the Supreme Court ruled that the state must evacuate the Amona settlement, which was established on private Palestinian land. I understood that the scale of the task and its nature could not be carried out by the Judea and Samaria District, and following a request from the Commander of the Central Command, I allocated a headquarters consisting of 2,000 police officers from special units from all over the country, which was subordinate to the commander of the Judea and Samaria Division. By the end of the day, despite heavy clashes between the police and the evacuees, the outpost was evacuated, and the rule of law won.

One must understand: these Jewish terrorists are not just a handful and not just "fools".

These are trained phalanxes equipped with means and backed by politicians from the far right.

The story is not about right or left; the story is about the rule of law and our international status. The damage caused by the rioters is not only to the helpless, uninvolved population; it is first and foremost to the wonderful Zionist population that has settled over the years in Judea and Samaria legally and was sent there by Israeli governments. They, the rioters, by their actions create delegitimization for the entire settlement movement. They will be the first to pay the price when countries of the world decide not to purchase products manufactured in Judea and Samaria, followed by army commanders who will be accused of war crimes and arrested at airports around the world, and of course the State of Israel, whose status is steadily declining among the American public.

The author is a former Police Commissioner.

I call on the decision-makers and ask them to understand that crime on an ideological background is crime for all intents and purposes, and sometimes more serious. The problem can be solved.

Let the IDF and the police win.