Yair Lapid: ‘No one will dictate our rules of engagement to us’
Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid had forceful words for the Biden administration and rejected any attempt to pressure the IDF into changing its rules of engagement.
Photo by IDF
State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on Tuesday that the Biden administration “continue[s] to press our Israeli partners to closely review its policies and practices on rules of engagement and consider additional steps to mitigate the risk of civilian harm, protect journalists, and prevent similar tragedies in the future.”
He was relating to the death of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was probably mistakenly killed by IDF fire during a counterterrorism operation in the Jenin Refugee Camp on May 11.
Speaking on Wednesday evening at the Haifa Naval Base at the naval officers’ course graduation ceremony, Lapid told the graduates that “as of today, your duty is to protect us. But it also the duty of the country to protect you. I hear the calls to prosecute IDF soldiers following the death of Shireen Abu Akleh. I hear the calls to change our rules of engagement.”
“Israel has expressed sorrow over her death. It was a tragedy that transpired in an incident in which there was heavy enemy fire. The IDF never intentionally shoots at innocent people. We are deeply committed to freedom of the press and to some of the most stringent rules of engagement in the world,” he underscored.
“But to be clear – I will not allow an IDF soldier that was protecting himself from terrorist fire to be prosecuted just to receive applause from abroad. No one will dictate our rules of engagement to us, when we are the ones fighting for our lives. Our soldiers have the full backing of the government of Israel and the people of Israel,” Lapid declared.
Similarly, Alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated Wednesday that the IDF’s rules of engagement “will be determined by the IDF commanders, independent of any pressure – internal or external.”
“This is the truth: At any given moment there are Palestinian terrorists trying to murder Israelis. Not the other way around,” he stressed.
“Our hand is not light on the trigger, but the moral order is to hit terrorists and thus save human lives. As prime minister, I gave full backing to our fighters, and I expect our friends in the world not to preach morality to us but to back us in our war on terror,” he said.
Ariel Kahana, diplomatic correspondent for the Israel Hayom daily, reported that Bennett called US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides and said that “the American intervention in the opening fire procedures of the IDF soldiers is a dangerous and unacceptable precedent.”
Michael Oren, former ambassador of Israel in Washington, told IDF Radio on Thursday that “the State Department’s statement is unbelievably rash. The opening fire instructions of the IDF are much stricter than those of the US. During the wars in Iraq and Syria against ISIS, American forces killed tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of journalists, and no one was investigated.”
I’m afraid that President Biden and the current US administration speak in two tongues – we don’t want visits to Israel, warm smiles and assurances of close friendship, while at the same time this kind of interference occurs. The former is mere rhetoric.
The history of the US shows, anyway, that their support is only given when it suits them well.