Israel warns of a Ramadan escalation — while doing everything to provoke one
Israeli forces stand guard as Palestinians pass through the Qalandia checkpoint on their way to attend the first Friday prayers of Ramadan at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, 20 February 2026
Baker Zoubi writes in +972 on 24 February 2026:
“Security preparations are being made for Ramadan…” “Security officials are warning…” “The question is not whether there will be an escalation, but when…”
Statements like these flooded the airwaves in Israel last week ahead of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, emphasizing what has become almost conventional wisdom here in recent years: that Ramadan is a threat, portending violence by Palestinians against Israeli Jews.
Eyal Zamir, the Israeli army’s chief of staff, wrote a letter to the political echelon to this effect, detailing the army’s readiness for a potential escalation on various fronts. As the Israeli outlet Mako put it: “Zamir warned … about the potential for destabilization in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] in the explosive month that will begin this week.”
Israel’s police chiefs and representatives of the Interior Ministry even held a special meeting with imams and other public figures in Israel’s Arab communities last week, urging calm. While the meeting was wrapped in conciliatory language, it clearly reflected a security perception that Palestinian citizens are a risk factor to be managed, and not a community whose rights and freedom of worship must be protected.
On the contrary, the man in charge of the police, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, is working on legislation that would make it easier to ban the Islamic call to prayer. Under Ben Gvir, the police have already begun imposing fines for “noise disturbances” from mosques — a policy that is expected to increase during Ramadan’s nightly Taraweeh prayers.
In truth, the warnings by Israel’s security establishment could not be further from reality. Ramadan is not a threat, nor an “explosive month,” and never has been. The question we should be asking is: Who really wants an escalation during Ramadan, and who should we be warning about?
A one-sided escalation
Recent weeks have seen a markedly low incidence of nationalist attacks by Palestinians against Israeli Jews, both in the West Bank and inside the Green Line. In stark contrast, Israeli settlers have been carrying out pogroms in Palestinian villages on a near-daily basis, forcing some 700 Palestinians to flee their homes so far this year alone.