When U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry again says that Mahmoud Abbas has stopped terror, he will not recall that the IDF does the dirty work for the Palestinian Authority, such as it did overnight Monday when soldiers trying to carry out an arrest were met with live fire.
The Israeli soldiers responded by killing one terrorist, wounding three others and achieving their objective of capturing the wanted Islamic Jihad member.
The Palestinian Authority is responsible for security in Jenin, as in most other areas in Judea and Samaria. It officially is responsible for “law and order,” which usually amounts to handing out traffic tickets and fighting crime and drug trafficking.
The Israeli army maintains security at the security fence that separates Judea and Samaria from the rest of Israel. It also is responsible for economic and civil coordination with the Palestinian Authority, cooperating with the PA army, officially known as a “police force,” and acting independently when necessary.
“When we identify an emerging terror attack, including plan s for an attack, or ongoing terrorist activity, the IDF together with other security personnel takes matters in its own hands, IDF Spokesman Capt. Eitan Buchman told The Jewish Press Tuesday.
He added that is what happened in the overnight raid in Jenin early Tuesday morning.
The IDF, including the Kfir Brigade, the orthodox Jewish Netzach Yehuda regiment, and Border Police moved into Jenin, located in central Samaria, but were met with heavy resistance of approximately 50 Arabs, some of whom opened fire at the soldiers. They wounded two of them, and also threw grenades.
The troops returned fire, killing one terrorist.
Foreign media reported the incident.
The missing part of the story is that the Palestinian Authority does not carry out its commitment, dating back to the Oslo Accords, to tear apart the terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.
If Monday night’s wanted terrorist was a Fatah member, one could make the excuse that the Palestinian Authority is not mature enough to arrest its own terrorists
But in this case the terrorist was a member of the rival Islamic Jihad. If PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas really wants to prove that he can provide security for Israel in a future Palestinian Authority country, one would think he would try to prove it instead of letting the IDF do the dirty work for him.
That is a question no one asks, for the simple reason that it would harm the “peace process.”
John Kerry and President Barack Obama have frequently praised Abbas for reducing terror in Judea and Samara, so they got half of it right. Terror has been reduced, but not because of Abbas.
If they continue to convince themselves that Abbas has fought terror, while inciting it, they should be asking why the IDF was operating in Jenin in the first place.
The answer, of course, is that the Palestinian Authority cannot exist without the IDF. Every Israeli army soldier and junior officer serving in Judea and Samaria knows that, but senior officers, wanting to win a promotion, toe the party line and boast of coordination with the Palestinian Authority security forces.
Indeed, there is cooperation to a certain extent, but whenever the IDF carries out a counterterrorist operation in Judea and Samaria, Abbas gets the credit and Israel is blamed.
PA media reported that the soldiers shot him “directly in the heart,” making the arrest attempt appear to be a cruel attack aimed at murdering Arabs.
The New York Times’ Jodi Roderon duly noted that Arabs shot at the soldiers while reminding readers that the victim was a Palestinian “man” and not a terrorist, and that “such killings are rare,” as if “killing” is an IDF policy when trying to arrest terrorists.
Rodoren reported, “Israeli soldiers killed a young Palestinian man early Tuesday during a confrontation in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, as troops arriving to arrest an Islamic Jihad member suspected of planning terrorist attacks were greeted by violent protesters.”
The newspaper, like virtually all foreign media, uses the same terms over and over again to brainwash themselves and readers and perpetuating the myth of an “Occupation Army.”
The “refugee camp” connotes some poor village of tents for poor Arabs who were uprooted by Israel, while they are in fact third and fourth generation Arabs of those who fled or were chased out of Israel in previous wars.