Israel Understands Nothing but Force, but Diplomacy Has Always Worked Out Better
The most worrisome of all the horrific developments of the last few days have been those in the West Bank, alongside the possibility that suicide bombings will return to Israeli cities.
According to a briefing by the Israel Defense Forces, ever since October 7, the army and the Shin Bet security service have been shoring up the dam of terrorism that is about to burst. This has involved hundreds of operations, thousands of arrests, hundreds of terrorists killed and almost nightly risks to soldiers' lives. At best this is a superficial description of the situation.
- Reject Netanyahu's vision of conquest and death. Choose life
- As Israel's boot mercilessly presses down on West Bank's neck, of course there's terror
- In pursuit of revenge, Israel no longer knows what it is thinking
Clearly, terrorists are being arrested and attacks are being thwarted, but skepticism about the need for mass arrests is warranted. It's well known that quite a few of these arrests are based on very little – a Facebook post or a comment. And such arrests mainly do harm, since they create hatred.
Israeli security forces arrest Palestinian men during a military raid in Nur Shams refugee camp in Tul Karm, West Bank, January.Credit: Majdi Mohammed /AP
The real point, however, is that in the Gaza Strip, the army has allowed itself to go far in pressing for a hostage deal. From the chief of staff on down, an unusual public message has been sent that a deal is essential and that Israel can afford to retreat from the Philadelphi corridor that runs along the Gaza-Egypt border. Yet in the West Bank, the main message continues to be military force and more military force.
It's worth recalling one of the resounding lessons of the lone-wolf intifada in 2015-2016. Granted, no parallel is exact. But then too, motivation to commit attacks was high and attacks indeed happened. And then too, there was a right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Nevertheless, senior defense officials, led by then-Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, convinced the government to minimize collective punishment. Palestinian workers continued entering Israel. The IDF didn't carry out mass arrests, and tried to enable Palestinians to lead normal lives. The result is that those knife attacks didn't deteriorate into suicide bombings in major cities, and the intifada gradually waned until it ended.
Palestinians stand in a line next to IDF vehicles in Jenin, on Saturday.Credit: Majdi Mohammed/AP
The defense establishment has argued for months that Palestinian workers from the West Bank should be allowed into Israel, but to no avail. Netanyahu, under pressure from extremists in his government and inflamed by lies about what workers from Gaza did prior to October 7, doesn't dare touch it. Ever since that day, there has been a consensus that some of the Gazan workers whom Israel generously allowed to work within the Green Line exploited this generosity to collect intelligence for Hamas' massacre.
But the head of Unit 504, the army's human intelligence unit, refuted this in a briefing for reporters, and the Shin Bet similarly did so in the security cabinet. Both agencies, after having interrogated thousands of terrorists, collaborators and workers, said there is no evidence to support this claim. Yet that hasn't stopped the lie from taking hold.
Nor is it just the entry of Palestinian workers. A normal government would be talking with the heads of the Palestinian Authority.
Granted, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wrote a thesis denying the Holocaust 40 years ago and has said upsetting things about us. But he is a Palestinian leader – albeit currently weak and unpopular, in no small part because of us – who is willing to talk to us, who might be willing to accept some kind of responsibility for Gaza, and whose security services continue to help thwart terror.
Despite this, we aren't willing to let him visit Gaza. We are boycotting him and claiming that he's Hamas in diplomatic clothing.
Nobody has any expectations of a government controlled by ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. But we could expect both the army and the media to understand that military force isn't the only option in thwarting terrorism; so can diplomatic agreements and economic incentives.
An elderly man stands with a Palestinian flag before Israeli army armored vehicles in Tul Karm, last month.Credit: AFP
The past 11 months should have made even the stiff-necked people dwelling in Zion understand that there are limits to our power. We have bombed, killed, crushed, flattened, arrested and otherwise used our full force, augmented by an American airlift. Yet despite this, our security situation is worse than ever before.
Netanyahu likes to say that every area from which we have withdrawn has become a den of terrorists. It would be more accurate to say that every territory from which we have withdrawn unilaterally has become a venue for terrorism, whereas every diplomatic agreement has stood the test of time – the treaties with Egypt and Jordan and even the partial agreements with Syria.
On October 5, 1973, the eve of the Yom Kippur War, Israelis were overwhelmingly opposed to withdrawing from Sinai. By September 1978, at the Camp David Summit, the situation was completely different. Evidently, we (also) understand nothing but force.