The West Bank is about to erupt and Israel is doing little to stop it
Palestinians hurl rocks at Israeli military vehicles during an Israeli military operation in the West Bank village of Rujib, late August 2022
Amos Harel writes in Haaretz on 4 September 2022:
Most of Israel’s frequent security briefings focus on the new nuclear deal between the world powers and Iran. The maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon is still raging, accompanied by fierce threats from Hezbollah. But in every conversation with defense officials in the past several weeks, it is the Palestinian arena that tops the list of potential areas of escalation, particularly the West Bank.
The Gaza Strip saw a three-day round of fighting this summer, in early August. The match that ignited it was lit in the West Bank, with Israel’s arrest of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander. The operation in Gaza, like its predecessors, exposed the limited ability of the Palestinian organizations in the Strip to cause damage to Israel. The fence that Israel built around the territory greatly inhibits penetration into Israel using tunnels, and the Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts most of the rockets fired from Gaza. Hamas claimed its main success last year, during Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls, when the organization encouraged violence on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and in mixed Jewish-Arab cities within Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
The potential risk in the West Bank is greater. This was illustrated in the second intifada, and later in shorter periods characterized by “lone-wolf” attacks, for about six months starting in fall 2014 and most recently for about two months this spring. The main challenge, which was also demonstrated this year, is the impossibility of completely stopping potential terrorists from entering Israel from the West Bank through breaches in the separation barrier, or fence in some places. The result is shootings and stabbings within Israel proper, and the resultant heightened friction with Palestinian militants when the Israel Defense Forces responds by conducting arrest operations deep in the West Bank.
The most recent wave of terror attacks was halted in May, but it was replaced by severe and frequent clashes in the northern West Bank, in the Jenin and Nablus area. Shootings during arrest operations have increased by dozens of percentage points, as have attempted attacks in remote areas, against military camps and civilian areas in the West Bank.
The reasons have been enumerated here more than once: a decline in the Palestinian Authority’s ability to control events; the entry of local organizations into the vacuum left behind; the Palestinian security mechanisms’ hesitance to confront them; and Israeli passivity, also expressed in the total paralysis of the diplomatic process (and a tight fist when it comes to economic gestures). The fear that this explosive mixture will become more volatile, embroiling Israel and the Palestinians in another long period of escalation – a third intifada or a slightly more restrained version of it – comes up in every conversation with senior security officials: the Shin Bet security service, Military Intelligence, the IDF Central Command and the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
In all these conversations, a slow but almost certain slide down a slope is described. The PA rarely sends its security forces to the refugee camps, city centers and certain northern West Bank villages. Hamas inflames the tension, but does not control it. In the absence of activity by the PA security mechanism, the IDF increases its own activity. In the past, this method was described as an effective “lawn mowing”: Numerous multiple arrests led to investigations, which in turn produced intelligence and more arrests and gradually reduced the scope of terrorism.
But now there is a fear that a vicious cycle has been created: Most of the arrests target not veteran activists, but rather young militants who have fired at Israeli forces. And every additional Palestinian death during IDF activity intensifies the desire for revenge and brings more young people into the circle of friction. The army estimates that nearly 200 Palestinian militants were involved in the recent clashes in Nablus alone. These numbers have not been seen in the West Bank for years – possibly not since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, the turning point in the second intifada.
IDF soldiers patrol near Jenin
Another profound difference is the sheer quantity of weapons in the West Bank today. At the height of the intifada, the PA’s security forces also took part in the fighting. That has not happened this time so far, but automatic weapons are much more common on the Palestinian street, available to every local cell. This is the result of years of smuggling from Jordan, along with theft from within Israeli territory and from IDF bases. To some extent, the phenomenon is similar to what has happened in Arab communities inside Israel, where guns are used mainly for criminal rather than ideological purposes. “Over the years, the rise in gun numbers is reminiscent of the rise in cellphone numbers,” a senior defense official told Haaretz.
Israel’s intelligence agencies cannot predict if and when a tipping point will drag the West Bank into a major escalation. A strategic warning submitted by Military Intelligence about six years ago has not borne out, but throughout this period there has been a significant rise of frustration in the West Bank, and in criticism of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the struggle for whose succession is openly underway.
The Temple Mount should also be mentioned in this context. Operation Guardian of the Walls erupted when the Hamas leadership in Gaza fired rockets in response to clashes at the site during the month of Ramadan, when religious sentiments run high and any local disagreement surrounding Al-Aqsa Mosque is seen as a matter of life and death. A year went by; disputes surrounding the site threatened to ignite another round of violence that ultimately broke out for other reasons in August.
Ramadan will come next year as well, but what is happening in the meantime is a continuous erosion of the status quo at the site in favor of the Jewish side, in a way that angers Muslims. It has to do with the erosion of the Jewish religious taboo on Jews visiting the site, along with the willingness of the government and the police to allow too many visitors there. The changes necessitate heightening the coordination between Israel, Jordan and the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust that administers the site, while reviewing the old arrangements, whose history and exact provisions are known to few. Jordan’s King Abdullah regularly expresses anger with Israel’s conduct, but successive Israeli governments have done very little about the issue. Instead, they let rabbis and the organizations of Jews who visit the site frequently dictate new rules that are unacceptable to Jordan and the Palestinians. As in the past, this could have devastating results on the ground.
More Security
Everything described here is well known to Israel’s political leadership. But the constant looking to the right, to what opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu will say, makes it difficult for the caretaker government to take steps aimed at bolstering the PA, much less to renew peace negotiations.
It also appears that the competition and rivalry between Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz (the only politician who still maintains direct, regular contact with the PA leadership) also affect the situation. The fear of being seen as overly left-wing paralyzes the members of the so-called government of change. And it must be admitted that even the professionals in the various government ministries, who present their concerns in closed discussions, do not go out of their way to sound the alarm publicly. The red lights are on. It is likely that at some point they will be translated into an explosion.
There is another thing that should be kept in mind: When the second intifada broke out, in September 2000, about 200,000 Israelis lived in the West Bank. Today, there are about 450,000 (according to the Central Bureau of Statistics), excluding the nearly 300,000 Israelis who live in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line. As with the Palestinians, a large part of this public did not experience the second intifada in person. The main security risk with which it’s familiar is rocks thrown at cars on the highways, not shootings. The settlements in the West Bank have expanded over the years and in practice have annexed enormous tracts of land in the form of settlement outposts. A new conflict in the West Bank will require providing protection for larger populated areas and constant security for many more Israelis.
Strange Consensus
Fifty years ago this month, the American journalist David Halberstam published “The Best and the Brightest,” the classic book documenting the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Halberstam described America’s descent into the murderous, futile conflict precisely under two presidents, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who apparently surrounded themselves with the best advisers.
It could very well be that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more complex. It also is taking place not 13,000 kilometers away from home, but rather with the neighbor across the street. Still, it’s hard not to notice a few similarities, starting with the insistence on ignoring everything the Palestinians broadcast and signal, as if Israel operates in a vacuum. This is the origin of the strange consensus that has prevailed here in recent years, according to which in the absence of political agreement in Israel on the desired solution, it will be possible to continue to manage the conflict forever, without suffering any consequences. This appears to be an illusion that will, in the end, be dashed on the ground of reality.
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