The limits of Israel’s control are being tested – analysis

Only a few days ago, The Jerusalem Post received messages from senior defense officials that the situation in the West Bank was under control and that there was a good chance that the IDF would be able to draw down on reinforcement battalions it had sent into the West Bank since March 2022.

Then on Saturday, the IDF announced it was adding two new reinforcement battalions. No one is talking about drawing down anymore.

The raid in the Jenin Refugee Camp on Thursday, the response from Gaza on Thursday and Friday and the subsequent terror attacks have shown that the IDF’s power is not capable of permanently dictating the outcome in the endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During the 2000-2005 Second Intifada, the IDF added a large West Bank barrier wall; during and after the 2015-2016 Knife Intifada, Israel added additional barriers between portions of Jerusalem and certain neighborhoods from where terrorists had attacked. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) learned how to follow, trace, anticipate and preempt potential lone-wolf terror attackers by following their online activities.

And yet, when an east Jerusalem Palestinian with no prior terror record walks into a primarily Jewish neighborhood and opens fire, there is little the mighty IDF and Shin Bet can do.

Palestinians clash with Israeli security forces during a protest in the village of Beita, near the West Bank city of Nablus, on January 28, 2023. (credit: NASSER ISHTAYEH/FLASH90)

When a 13-year-old carries out a terror attack, Israel’s highly advanced technological defense machine is also outplayed by an asymmetric adversary.

This does not mean that the IDF and the Shin Bet cannot eventually rein in the current terror wave.

But one thing that defense officials have made clear to the Post is that current teenage and adolescent Palestinians do not remember the Knife Intifada, much less the IDF’s Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.

To get them to reduce the current terror wave, the IDF will either need to continue, and potentially even substantially escalate, its operations over an extended period until it has convinced this next generation of Palestinians that they cannot win and can benefit more from economic cooperation with Israel – or provide the Palestinians with some kind of diplomatic horizon that gives the other side some hope. Or a mix of the two.

If Israel chooses only military force, it will, at best, solve the issue for a few years, until a new group of adolescents spring up who will not remember the conflict of 2022-2023.

Jenin is beyond the control of Palestinian leaders

The fact is that governments have mostly ignored the Palestinians for several years, distracted by internal divisions, Iran and the hope that the Abraham Accords would make them accept the new Middle East reality.

Defense officials have told the Post that what is happening in Jenin is beyond the control of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Some are not even concerned about the PA stopping security cooperation in Jenin, because there has been none there for years.

In other places, however, restoring security cooperation is a top priority as the PA has at times been extremely helpful to the Shin Bet.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad seemed to step back from the brink after the Jenin raid by only firing a symbolic number of rockets at Israel, which had little chance of harming anyone.

They are still nursing their wounds from the confrontations with Israel in May 2021 and August 2022.

But Palestinians in Jenin, some potential attackers in east Jerusalem and individuals who will become teenagers in the coming years are a group that Israel needs to figure out a way to speak to and give hope to, or any new Israeli victory will be as temporary as the past ones.