Amos Harel : Analysis Abbas Scales Back Israeli-Palestinian Security Coordination as He Preps for Diplomatic Confrontation
Fears are increasing that relations with the Palestinians will
spiral out of control once again, as happened in July during the latest
Temple Mount crisis
September
seems to be the most sensitive month for Israeli-Palestinian relations,
Israeli intelligence officials say. This September, defense officials
are worrying about the erratic, often belligerent behavior of
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Frustrated at the Trump administration’s Mideast policy
and the international community’s apathy toward the Palestinian
problem, Abbas is thinking about renewing the Palestinian Authority’s
applications for acceptance into a host of international organizations.
He’ll also be taking a hard line in his address to the UN General
Assembly.
Moves
like this could affect facts on the ground, especially during the High
Holy Days and the usual tensions concerning the Temple Mount during that
time. For the time being, the Palestinians have scaled back security
cooperation with Israel, which could impair efforts to thwart terrorism.
Defense officials increasingly feel that Israel is living on borrowed
time in the territories until the next violent upheaval.
A
few months ago, at the behest of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman,
the coordinator of government activities in the territories crafted a
plan for the construction of around 14,000 homes in the West Bank town of Qalqilyah
in Area C, which is under full Israeli control. The proposal was
designed to address the Palestinians’ economic and housing needs and to
improve the strained relations with the PA.
But
when the Qalqilyah housing plan was debated by the cabinet in July, the
hawks in the governing coalition, led by Naftali Bennett’s Habayit
Hayehudi party with support from certain Likud ministers, blew a gasket.
Lieberman and Bennett began to argue. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
hinted that defense officials hadn't presented the full picture to him
and said another debate would be held on the plan in two weeks.
But
almost two months have passed and no such debate has taken place. The
ministers suspect that the Qalqilyah housing plan has been shelved
because Netanyahu realized that most of his cabinet wouldn’t back it.
The Habayit Hayehudi ministers and settler leaders argue against
approving the plan because of Qalqilyah’s proximity to the Trans-Israel
Highway, and because it would lay the groundwork for transferring land
to the Palestinians in a future peace agreement.
But
defense officials say a failure to take steps benefiting the
Palestinians worsens the risk of an explosion. On Wednesday, U.S.
President Donald Trump asked to meet with Netanyahu and Abbas at the UN
General Assembly in two weeks, thus relaunching the peace process.
The
Palestinians suspect that Trump is biased in Israel's favor and can’t
jump-start negotiations. Abbas is furious that Trump refuses to commit
to a two-state solution, is worried about Congress enacting the Taylor
Force Act (which would block economic aid to the PA because of its
support for terrorists’ families), and is frustrated at the
international community’s indifference to the Palestinian problem. Also,
Abbas is 82 and not in rude health.
On
top of preparations to join international organizations, which
Washington asked the Palestinians not to do in the past, Abbas' people
are yet again thinking about taking Israel to court in The Hague.
Unusually, Abbas chose to be absent from the West Bank during the
late-August visit to Israel and the West Bank by UN Secretary-General
António Guterres. Abbas was in Turkey. Guterres was left to meet with
Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.
Speaking
at the United Nations two years ago, when the peace process was as
frozen as today, Abbas threatened that the Palestinians would stop
fulfilling the agreements with Israel since the signing of the Oslo
Accords. The threat didn't fully materialize, but the next day a wave of
terrorism broke out in Israel and the West Bank. Eventually over 40
Israelis were killed. The Israeli government linked the two events and
claimed that Abbas’ speech had been interpreted as approval for
escalating violence.
Security
coordination between Israel and the PA hasn't recovered since the last
Israeli-Palestinian meltdown, after the shooting attack in July when two
Israeli policemen were killed on the Temple Mount, and after the
tensions over Israel's placing of metal detectors at the Mount's entrances.
At Abbas’ behest, there are hardly any high-ranking meetings between
Israeli security officials and their Palestinian counterparts; these are
largely limited to emergencies. In response, Israel curtailed the
operations of the joint civilian council, which is important to the
Palestinians.
Nor have tensions with Amman been resolved. The Jordanians are still irked after Netanyahu celebrated the return of the Israeli security guard who killed two Jordanians in an incident at the Amman embassy.
The Jordanians are holding up the resuming of joint operations planned
with Israel. Israeli officials suspect that if tensions on the Temple
Mount erupt again, the Hashemite kingdom won’t be in a hurry to calm
things down.
The
events on the Temple Mount, the incident at the Amman embassy, and the
controversy over the Qalqilyah development plan soured relations between
Netanyahu and Israel’s security chiefs. You get the feeling that these
chiefs realized that when the coalition is sweating, as investigations
against the prime minister and his people gain pace, they’re on their
own. And they behave accordingly.
Meanwhile,
there are fears that relations with the Palestinians will spiral out of
control once again, whether because of an accumulation of factors or an
isolated incident as happened with the Temple Mount in July.
Meanwhile,
the number of incidents in the territories has receded in recent weeks.
On Thursday, the commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank, Brig.
Gen. Lior Carmeli, is moving on after two years. Carmeli had a good
stint, during which he helped contain the lone-wolf terrorism that
erupted in October 2015.
He
is being succeeded by Eran Niv. During the second intifada, as
commander of the Nahal Brigade, Niv was the officer who led the wiping
out of a cell that killed 12 Israelis in a 2002 ambush in Hebron.
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