When Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Jewish terror and violence were spinning out of control around two weeks ago, it was in the context of objections to the judicial overhaul, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Yediot Ahronot first reported Bar's warning to Netanyahu. Still, it takes on new meaning after this weekend's events in which Jews in the West Bank and Palestinians clashed around 250 meters from Burka, near Ramallah.
While a final judgment on the facts and any criminal allegations must wait for the full probe by the Shin Bet and the Police, many public and leaked points from the IDF and the Shin Bet make it clear that Israel's security forces are failing to prevent such incidents.
Security forces not dedicating enough resources to combatting settler terror
Put differently, while Israeli security forces are using drones, proactive intelligence collections and ambushes to catch massive amounts of Palestinian terror plots before they happen, to date, there is much less bold action to block Jewish violence or terror before it happens.
It seems clear that there was a fault on both sides in the Burka incident, but from what has been leaked to date, that fault was not balanced.
Elisha Yered, suspected of being involved in the death of 19-year-old Palestinian Qusai Jamal Maatan in the West Bank village of Burqa last night, arrives for a hearing at the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, August 5, 2023. (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)The Jewish West Bank residents from the illegal outpost of Oz Zion came as close as 250 meters from Burka and far off from their outpost to have their flocks of sheep graze on Palestinian land.
They did this at a time when it is highly abnormal to take sheep out to graze and as Shabbat was starting, despite being nominally Shabbat observant. Some were armed with items later allegedly used for arson against Palestinian property.
One of the Jews, Yehiel Indore, was armed with a gun, not something one needs for grazing sheep.
The IDF had no one in the area watching for such an event who could jump in and send the Jewish West Bank residents back before the Palestinians came out.
For multiple hours, as the incident slowly and painfully unfolded and escalated from both sides, the IDF had no independent way of noticing an extended and sizable altercation.
The IDF has defended itself by saying that Palestinian sources gave incorrect or incomplete information about where the altercation occurred. This threw IDF forces off the scent of where things were happening.
The IDF only arrived at the scene after the Jewish residents called in the correct location after Indore had been struck in the head by a Palestinian rock. Security forces only arrested those accused of involvement in the shooting but did not arrest rock throwers on either side.
Hopefully, the investigation will uncover whether Indore fired first when he allegedly killed Palestinian Qusai Jamal Ma'atan or whether one of the Palestinians first struck him in the head (there are stories about people being wounded and still firing afterward, but this narrative raises question marks.)
But in some ways, that is beside the point.
The IDF is by far the most powerful military in the Middle East and is on the whole planet's shortlist regarding its technology and surveillance capabilities.
Top IDF and Shin Bet officials regularly brag that Israel can take out terrorists and enemies anywhere in the region anytime because of Israel's drone, spy plane and F-35 stealth aircraft capabilities.
Is it viable to say that Israel's security forces could not up their game, including using aerial capabilities, to catch altercations in the West Bank between Jews and Palestinians and stop them before they get out of hand?
At one point, the IDF had only 13 battalions in the West Bank. Now it has 20 battalions, but at the height of the terror wave, it was up to 26 battalions. So there are always more troops if needed to cover more areas.
When the IDF got ready to invade Gaza in 2014, it called up 80,000 reservist soldiers.
It carried out 20 pinpoint airstrikes alone from drones in Jenin two days earlier in July.
From May 9 to May 13, the IDF attacked Islamic Jihad in Gaza 422 times, including 278 completely distinct targets.
IDF drones logged over 4,000 hours hovering over Gaza during the five-day operation.
After three Jewish teenagers were killed by Palestinian terrorists in the summer of 2014, the IDF quickly rounded up and arrested hundreds of suspects.
The only significant change Israel's security forces have taken to date is to toss somewhere between a half dozen to a dozen Jewish West Bank residents into administrative detention (along with the more than 1,000 Palestinians already administratively detained.)
Administrative detention might be temporarily valuable for sidelining violent Jewish ringleaders if the detainees are guilty. Still, it also might gravely harm the human rights of innocent Jewish persons and overall is a drop in the bucket if there are hundreds of Jews participating in recent violent incidents in Huwara and elsewhere.
In short, Israel's security forces could be doing a lot more than they are doing.
But the Post understands that the top IDF officials do not want to.
Sure, they will sometimes rebuke and maybe even discipline IDF troops who happen to be in the "right" place and see Jewish violence against Palestinians before their eyes without stopping it.
Yet, they do not see this as the IDF's role. The IDF's role is to fight Israel's exterior enemies and to combat terrorism targeting Israelis along with the Shin Bet. Anything else is secondary or less. They wish the police were handling this issue. This might be a viable argument for a few months or years, but not for an issue dating back to 1967.
Likewise, the governing coalition has significant elements which seem to actively push against the IDF and the Shin Bet reining in any Jewish violence.
This is not only a problem for Israel regarding its human rights obligations. It also flows into the Shin Bet and IDF warnings that Jewish violence against Palestinians boomerangs, leading to exponentially more terror against Jews.
Not that hardcore Palestinian terrorists need a reason to want to kill Jews.
But when the Shin Bet and IDF's top officials warn that 18 months into a Palestinian terror wave, the Jewish vigilante violence could make things much worse, failing to recalibrate how much power Israel's security forces put into addressing violence from the Jewish side could prove disastrous.
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August 07, 2023 at 05:41PM
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Unmasking IDF's excuse for failing to stop Jewish-Palestinian violence - The Jerusalem Post
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