(JNi.media) IDF Paratroopers Brigade commander Col. Nimrod Aloni told Army Radio on Thursday that the solution to the current wave of Arab terror is not necessarily military. Aloni spoke on the occasion of his elite force taking in new recruits today.
“It’s a very big challenge with the current terror, and there’s great deal of confusion on how to deal with it,” Aloni said. ”Is there any chance to win? I think this is very much not a military question, it’s very much tied to political decisions.”
Perhaps betraying some frustration, Aloni added, “At this stage in the game we’re playing defense almost at the goal line, trying to prevent the next attack from happening.”
The wave of terror, he said, is receiving the backing of the Arab public. “There are people you meet who absolutely want quiet,” he related, “but it’s very characteristic in recent days that this wave is enjoying a very broad support from below. Anyone claiming Palestinian society condemns this wave — I think they don’t read the news at all,” Aloni said.
“I think the Palestinian society is supporting in both a general and daily manner this wave of terror and the terrorists,” he continued. “Nevertheless, we do encounter all the time a lot of Palestinians who would like to have quiet, they would like to have something else. But this wave, unlike others, is characterized by a very broad support in the Palestinian street.”
According to Col. Aloni, the Army and the Paratroopers’ Brigade today are different from those into which he was drafted back in 1991. “Both society and the Army have endured a great deal in the past 24 years,” he said. “I think the boy who enlists today will find the very basic values [in the military], and a society around the Army which has become a little different, a little more critical, much more sensitive,” he said.
Col. Nimrod Aloni was born in Ein Kerem, in Jerusalem, and grew up in a Moshav in the northern Negev associated with the Labor party. He holds a BA in Law and Government from IDC Herzliya, and an MA in Military and National Security from Hebrew University, as well as an MA in Strategy and Management of National Resources from National Security University in the US. Aloni is married with four children.