At the end of an explosive week, literally, in Judea and Samaria, with an IDF force running into an ambush of hundreds of Arab terrorists in the Jenin refugee camp, four Israelis murdered in a gas station outside Eli, and large groups of masked settlers raiding the nearby villages that produced the murderers, the security apparatus is not ready to launch an all-out operation in northern Samaria.
The IDF insists that such an option is being examined all the time, and operational contingency plans are ready to be implemented. Just not now.
US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides on Thursday night once again performed the Biden administration’s juggling act of condemning the terrorists and then condemning the Israelis who try to stop the same terrorists. Nides told a group of Jewish and Arab youths in Tel Aviv that the US does not intend to “stand by and watch the settlers’ violence, it must be stopped.” And then he proclaimed that “my heart breaks for all the families who lost their loved ones 48 hours ago.”
If Nides thought there was a connection between the two events, namely that the Jews set fire to Arab property in villages that produced the murderers of their loved ones – he didn’t share it with his audience. For Ambassador Nides, as is the case for many in the West, it all started when Israel retaliated.
In the debates at the top security echelon, according to Maariv, the Shin Bet presented a more hawkish position, pushing for a limited operation in northern Samaria now. But the IDF wants to exhaust other options before launching an operation, limited or otherwise. For the time being, the IDF brass prefers to continue Operation Breakwater which began on March 31, 2022 and included some 530 raids on terrorist nests, with three Israeli casualties and at least 165 PA Arabs, some 70 of them from Jenin.
Operation Breakwater was and is successful in achieving its goals, namely to locate and arrest terrorists before they go on rampages against Israeli civilians. But there are three fundamental problems: 1. Operation Breakwater receives little or no support from the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, which have become absentee landlords. 2. Hamas is using this political-security vacuum, combined with the surgical nature of the IDF’s operation, to intensify its force in Judea and Samaria in terms of the number of terrorists, which today is estimated at more than 5,000, and the size of its arsenal, which includes stolen IDF weapons and ammunition. 3. Operation Breakwater has not changed the situation in the terrorist enclaves, it only contained it, and for every terrorist who is removed from the arena, either dead or imprisoned, two new ones take his place.
After 14 months, Operation Breakwater has been able to deliver less and less security for Israelis living in Samaria, and the quadruple murder in Eli made it clear that the IDF, dedicated as it may be, is either unwilling or unable to protect the settlers. The settlers’ response this week packed a lot more punch than in any previous clash between Hill Youths, Tag Mehir activists, or ordinary settlers against their Arab neighbors.
The raids on the villages from which the Eli murderers had emerged involved hundreds of settlers, who caused enormous damage, setting fire to dozens of homes and cars, throwing stones, and chasing and beating local youths. The settlers also set fire to many acres of fields. In short, Arab terrorism was met with Jewish terrorism, and it appears the Jews are better at it. And the raiders were not the ideological “extremists” of past clashes. They were rank-and-file settlers who served in the Army, pay their taxes, and vote.
This, too, is the result of a vacuum – if the IDF and the Shin Bet fail to deliver security, somebody must. The Shin Bet arrested three Jewish suspects on Thursday. Two were arrested while traveling on the highway, and one in his home in a Samaria settlement. But no one is kidding themselves to believe that the continued failure of the Yoav Gallant security apparatus to uproot the terrorist hubs will not result in more countermeasures by the settlers.
Israel Beitenu Chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman called on Thursday to exact a price from Hamas in the Gaza Strip, arguing that “any reasonable person understands that the terrorist organizations in northern Samaria are working on obtaining a rocket capability and that it is only a matter of time before dozens or perhaps hundreds of Qassam rockets are at their disposal, the way it started in the Gaza Strip. The generator of the current wave of terrorism in Israel is Hamas in Gaza. The incitement on the social networks, the money, the training, and the knowledge, everything comes from there. That’s why anyone who wants to eradicate terrorism in Judea and Samaria must start in the Gaza Strip. And this means targeted eliminations of Hamas leaders, instead of the immunity that Netanyahu grants them.”
Meanwhile, the IDF blamed the settlers for having to cancel yet another pin-pointed arrest of a terrorist. Instead of picking up another terrorist and exchanging fire with hundreds of his armed neighbors, the IDF was forced to stay around the Samaria settlements to prevent future settlers’ raids.
Did a solution emerge? To receive IDF protection, go burn a few cars in the neighboring Arab village. Safety is guaranteed for at least a few days. Rinse, repeat.
