Yaniv Kubovich After attack, Israeli intel officials fear collective punishment could ignite West Bank | Analysis
The attack that killed two Israelis
in a West Bank industrial park Sunday poses a challenge for political
and military leaders: How to respond without increasing the risk of a
renewed escalation in the West Bank.
Ever since the
violent Hamas-led protests began in the Gaza Strip on March 30, the
organization has tried by every means possible to get West Bank
Palestinians to join in. But so far, even 200 dead Gazans, thousands of
wounded, the transfer of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, the annual Nakba
Day commemorations and the Ramadan holiday have all failed to do so.
Hamas’ attempts to
build up its terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank have also failed,
thanks to efforts by both the Israeli and the Palestinian Authority
security services.
But
now, Israeli intelligence agencies fear the mood in the West Bank could
provide fertile ground for lone-wolf terror attacks like the wave that
happened three years ago. Starting in October 2015, lone-wolf assailants
unaffiliated with any terror group carried out numerous stabbing,
car-ramming and shooting attacks that killed dozens of Israelis. They
were inspired mainly by social media, where the perpetrators of the
attacks were glorified.
An outbreak of
similar attacks in the West Bank now could completely alter Hamas’
position in its conflict with Israel, because the opening of a second
front would pose a much more serious challenge for the Israel Defense
Forces than it faces in Gaza. Senior defense officials still believe the
Gaza front could be resolved by a cease-fire deal with Hamas.
Defense
officials have been warning the government for some time now of the
possibility of an outbreak of violence in the West Bank. Just last
month, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot told the security cabinet there
was a growing risk of violence in the West Bank in the near future, and the previous month, Shin Bet security service chief Nadav Argaman made a similar warning.
While
defense officials support a cease-fire agreement with Hamas, they
believe Israel’s effort to reach such a deal (via Egyptian and UN
mediators) over the head of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
undermines Abbas’ standing in the West Bank and bolsters Hamas there.
Moreover, they say, such an effort makes young Palestinians think that
Hamas’ terrorism pays.
If the government
responds to Sunday’s terror attack with collective punishment that hurts
all 8,000 Palestinian employees of the Barkan industrial zone, or all
100,000 Palestinians with permits to work in Israel or the settlements,
Hamas will be strengthened, and the chances of violence erupting in the
West Bank will grow.
The defense
establishment believes Israel should punish only the terrorist, the
people who sent him and the people who abetted the attack. Both the IDF
and the Shin Bet argue that preserving calm in the West Bank and
security coordination with the PA are more important than collective
punishment, which they don’t believe does much to deter lone-wolf
terrorists.
But
after every previous such incident, the politicians have favored
collective punishment as a deterrent – often because social media users
demanded such action – and have viewed the defense establishment’s
position as weakness. After last year’s shooting attack in Har Adar, for instance, the government initially wanted to respond by banning all Palestinian workers from the settlement.
Today, defense
officials consider the situation far more flammable and believe that
collective punishment would give Hamas a significant boost among West
Bank Palestinians. They are therefore trying to balance the need to
respond to the attack against the need to maintain the calm in the West
Bank.
Over
the past year, the security services have largely managed to keep
lone-wolf attacks at bay. For instance, Argaman said recently that the
Shin Bet foiled 250 attacks during the first half of this year and
arrested more than 400 Palestinians who had been planning lone-wolf
attacks.
Altogether,
the security services arrest some 4,000 Palestinians in the West Bank
every year; they also employ sophisticated cybertech to monitor
Palestinian social media. In addition, the IDF has seized 330 guns from
suspected terrorists so far this year, one-third of them in the past
three months.
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