world news
Why is the IDF catching Jewish terrorists less than Palestinian ones? – analysis
The IDF is doing a better job at catching Palestinian terrorists than Jewish ones.
Anecdotal evidence and statistical evidence both bear this out.
As of August 2024, there were 9,881 Palestinian security inmates being held by Israel.
3,432 Palestinians were being held in administrative detention along with 1,584 Palestinian “unlawful combatants,” 2,074 sentenced prisoners, and 2,791 pre-indictment or pre-conviction detainees.We also know that in the West Bank alone, close to 5,000 Palestinians have been detained over the course of the war.
Sometimes Palestinian terrorists are not immediately caught after an attack, but quite often they are, and it is very rare that they are not caught or killed within a period of weeks or months.
Yet, in multiple February 2023 incidents of Jewish terrorists attacking Palestinians in Huwara, we know that out of hundreds of Jewish attackers, less than 10 were arrested, and an even smaller number seem to be getting prosecuted.
So far out of over 100 Jewish terrorists who attacked the Palestinian village of Jit in mid-August, only four have been detained.
These trends are not new.
Outgoing IDF Central Commander for the West Bank, Maj. Gen, Yedhua Fuchs, said this in his final speech on July 8, current Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar recently accused officials like National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of sometimes indirectly and sometimes almost explicitly encouraging the phenomenon, and former Shin Bet and IDF Central Commanders have been sounding somewhat similar warnings on and off certainly since 2014.
The IDF and Shin Bet have also accused Ben Gvir of discouraging the police from reining in Jewish violence, whether in the West Bank or against humanitarian aid trucks trying to get to Kerem Shalom to bring food to Gaza Palestinians earlier in the current war.
There has been extremist Jewish violence against Palestinians with significantly below expectations arrests for many years, even though that violence is still at a much lower volume than Palestinian violence.
The problem isn’t bringing caught perpetrators to justice, that has been happening many times since 2014, when Palestinians have been killed by a Jew or Jews.
Once caught, Israel has pushed hard to prosecute such persons.
On August 15, the Jerusalem Post reported exclusively that the 2019 indictment against a full-bodied minor (his identity is under gag order) for the alleged killing of Palestinian female and mother Aysha Rabi in October 2018 could be close to a verdict in later 2024 or early 2025.
This would not be the only such case of Jewish terrorists facing justice for violence against Palestinians, with the 2014 murderer of Palestinian minor Muhammad Abu Khadir, Yoseph Chaim Ben David, and the 2015 murderer of the Palestinian Dawabsheh family, Amiram Ben Uliel, both sentenced to life in jail in recent years.
Elor Ben Azariah, Ben Deri, and other IDF soldiers have also been given prison time for killing Palestinians.
But this does not address the fact that most Jewish terrorists are never caught in the first place.
So why does Israel catch Jewish terrorists less often than Palestinian ones?
Some of it is the constant passing the ball back and forth between the IDF and the Police, neither of who wants the politically unpopular job of reining in Jewish violence against Palestinians.
Anyone who does that job “well” in recent years comes under attack by Ben Gvir and others who seem to always be opposed to indicting or convicting Jews accused of attacking Palestinians.
Top IDF sources have made it clear to the Post that the military’s main role is to fight wars against other foreign militaries like Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, not to enforce law and order to block small-scale Jewish violence against Palestinians. They believe that the police should be handling Jewish violence in the West Bank, whereas the police, even before Ben Gvir, said they could not carry out large operations in Palestinian areas without the IDF taking the lead.
What has changed since Huwara in 2023 and now with Jit, is that the attacks by Jews on Palestinians are no longer solely small scale.
Now there is a pattern of large scale attacks even if the number of them is still small in relative terms.
During the Second Intifada, Israel decided that it could not view Palestinian terrorism from the West Bank as a mere “law enforcement” issue with very limited rules of engagement.
Rather, it was a terrorism issue, which meant more aggressive rules of engagement.
If a Palestinian throws a rock at an IDF vehicle and breaks the windshield and then flees, even if no one in the IDF vehicle was hurt and even though the Palestinian is running away, and as such no longer presents an immediate threat, IDF open fire rules allow shooting for the Palestinian’s legs to make sure he does not escape.
At Jit, despite over 100 Jews attacking Palestinians and the IDF soldiers “live being in danger” from the Jews as well, all they did was physically push the Jewish attackers out of the village and at most fire in the air.
Sources said that they failed to arrest any of the over 100 Jews because it was hard to catch the attackers running in all different directions at night.
But if the soldiers were allowed to shoot for the legs when trying to arrest Jews involved in large scale attacks, maybe they would have caught more of them. Maybe also fewer Jews would risk attacking Palestinians.
Confronted with this possible change to the open fire rules, both current and former IDF officials who handle such issues did not seem to view such a change as remotely likely.
Some said this question was very dependent on the unique circumstances on the ground, which only the commander seeing things in real time could decide. Others said that there was no principled reason why IDF soldiers could not open fire on the legs of fleeing Jewish attackers, but that this could only be employed if there was no less lethal way of arresting them.
Yet, these responses present the issue as if there is not already evidence that the IDF is doing an extremely poor job of catching such people.
4 out of 100 is a 4% success rate. Clearly, less lethal means are not working and whoever the commander on the ground has been has not acted aggressively enough. This was also the conclusion of the IDF probe issued on Wednesday of the Jit incident.
A much more honest read is that IDF soldiers shooting at Jews legs (even not trying to kill) to protect Palestinians would just be either too politically explosive or likely too many IDF soldiers would ignore the orders and fake some technical sounding reason why they could not fire (such as innocent people being mixed in with attackers.)
There might be creative alternatives. Firing some kind of tracer that cannot be removed or object which could sedate someone trying to flee.
A huge permanent contingent of soldiers guarding all crossover areas throughout the West Bank could succeed, but is also unrealistic in terms of resources.
In the meantime, it is not clear that the IDF has seriously contended with how it will prevent the next Huwara or Jit. If that does not change, no one should be surprised when another IDF probe comes out apologizing for failing to protect Palestinians.
Right now is the closest Israel has been to a full war with Hezbollah since October 7.
This is true even in comparison to the period between July 30 and August 25, probably the second most dangerous period between the sides.
How do we know that the coming days, weeks, and months or two before the coming winter are so potentially explosive?
It is not just the statement that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued on Monday about his talk with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in which he said that the possibility for a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah in the North is running out.It is not just the rumors that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to replace Gallant with Gideon Saar as defense minister in order to have greater support for a major operation against Hezbollah.
It is not even just that Netanyahu’s main political opposition, Benny Gantz, continues to pound the prime minister as being too scared to risk a major battle in the North, which has left the 60,000 evacuated northern residents abandoned for nearly a year.
Confidence for major Hezbollah operation
These are the open and obvious signs – and frankly, much of Israel’s political and military class has been threatening to send Hezbollah back to the Stone Age since late early spring 2024.
It is also that the Jerusalem Post has received indications behind the scenes at both the political and military levels from sources who before were pouring cold water on the public statements, who are now signaling that the public statements are serious.
The reasons they give show how realities have changed a lot throughout the war.
For most of the war, the main reason not to get into a big fight with Hezbollah was to avoid distractions that might handicap the IDf from taking apart all 24 of Hamas’s battalions in Gaza.
As of August 21, Gallant declared Hamas’s last battalion in Rafah defeated.
Despite Netanyahu’s publicly threatening words and tone, another major reason that a big war with Hezbollah was not likely going to really happen until now was that the prime minister was privately terrified of how many Israelis might die from the expected Hezbollah onslaught of 6,000-8,000 rockets per day in the event of such a war.
That seems to have changed as of August 25.
On August 25, Hezbollah planned to launch several hundred and maybe up to 1,000 rockets on Israel, including on critical Israeli intelligence headquarters bases just North of Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu and the war cabinet instructed the IDF not to launch a full preemptive war on Hezbollah because, among other reasons, he was still worried about the impact on the Israeli home front.
However, something changed radically as a result of the events of August 25.
Since October 7, Netanyahu has doubted the IDF in areas where the objective risk was higher, even if the military supposedly would have the upper hand.
Sources have indicated that behind closed doors he was initially hesitant for each of the three invasions of Gaza; northern Gaza in late October, Khan Yunis in December, and Rafah in May.
Yet on August 25, the IDF did not just beat Hezbollah – it cleaned house.
Despite IDF’s substantive victories over Hamas and small tactical victories against Hezbollah, this was the first time that the IDF won a major and complex strategic victory over Hezbollah during this war.
It blew up the vast majority of the rockets and drones Hezbollah intended to attack Israel with before these threats could even be launched.
Hezbollah neither killed nor damaged anyone or anything of significance, while the IDF destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rockets.
Suddenly, Netanyahu has a newfound confidence that he can afford a major operation against Hezbollah with much fewer losses to the home front than he had expected.
What if – instead of 5,000 to 10,000 dead Israelis from tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets over several weeks – he could hit Hezbollah harder than it’s ever been hit before – and destroy so many of its rocket launchers on the ground, that Israeli casualties might be not just smaller, but exponentially smaller?
Another factor was until now there was a good chance that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire and that such a deal would lead Hezbollah to unilaterally stop attacking Israel, just as it did during the November 23-30 ceasefire with Hamas.
While this is not impossible, the chances of a ceasefire with Hamas now are lower than they have been in several months after both sides have dug in on various issues after having seemed to have navigated around 90% of the obstacles.
All along, the only other option that has been discussed if diplomacy failed was a major Israeli operation.
And Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah is still furious about the killing of his military chief Fuad Shukr by the IDF on July 30, so no one views him as being more flexible now than in other periods.
Finally, the winter comes into play.
Sources have told the Post that if more than 4-6 weeks pass without an operation, it may be impossible or much harder to carry out such an operation until Spring 2025.
That would mean condemning the northern residents to another 6 months outside of their homes, something becoming increasingly untenable domestically in Israel.
Pressed that the IDF managed a successful invasion of Khan Yunis and the finishing off of Hamas in Shejaia in northern Gaza in the middle of winter 2023-2024, sources responded that the winter in mountainous Lebanon is far more fierce and difficult to manage than in the deserts of Gaza.
None of this means that a new broader war with Hezbollah is certain.
It would still be a massively risky proposition for Israel, Hezbollah, and also for the sides’ sponsors: the US as well as Iran.
The US could be drawn into a regional war or at least be seen as having failed to prevent a larger war after a year of diplomacy, something that could impact the current US presidential election.
Iran could lose Hezbollah as its major potential threat to hold over Israel should the Jewish state dare to think of attacking the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. Hezbollah would undoubtedly remain the main player in Lebanon but might lose many of its most feared capabilities.
But this is clearly the riskiest moment in the North since October 7.
Time might have been on Israel’s side for significant portions of the current war, but it no longer is and likely has not been since April-May.
Yemen’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on Sunday made this clearer than ever.
Too much of the conversation about how long the war should go revolves around whether more military pressure can crack Hamas and get the Israeli hostages back versus whether a deal must be cut now, even if Hamas remains in power, so as to get the hostages back as time runs out for them.
Too little of the conversation takes into account how much more vulnerable Israel is becoming to attack on new fronts. Regarding these new fronts, Israel might never have taken direct hits or might have avoided taking direct hits for years or decades more if not for the length of this war, gradually exposing additional asymmetric holes in Israel’s military power.In order of current severity, Israel is facing seven fronts of attack: Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, and Iraq.
That’s right: Gaza is now probably only the fifth most dangerous front militarily, even though Israel is still treating it as the most important in terms of military resources (and diplomatically, it may be the most important front.)
Originally, when longer meant from October until January, part of the purpose of being willing to drag out the war longer was to take the necessary time to defeat Hamas in different pockets of Gaza while leaving time to move the Palestinian civilian population from place to place in between invasions.
Another part was to use the mix of ongoing pressure and threats of continued impending military invasions and pressure to wear Hamas down into cutting a deal to return the Israeli hostages.
A third part was that a slower war using strategic air strikes, tanks, and artillery as a prelude to infantry invasions of various areas meant fewer infantry casualties.
The theory was that Israel’s air defense was strong enough to withstand whatever Hamas could fire on the home front up until the point that the IDF destroyed most of Hamas’s rocket firing capability around December-January.
But all of this was assuming the war with Hamas would end around January – the official estimate of all defense officials in October-November – and that the other fronts would stay relatively quiet.
But as the war drew on, Hezbollah started firing on a larger number of northern towns and cities; Yemen joined the war, at first only against Eilat, but eventually also striking Tel Aviv, and now aiming again for central Israel.
Iran started pushing much harder to threaten Israel from the West Bank, Syria, and Iraq, as well as encouraging its proxies in Lebanon and Yemen to take more risks against Israel.
Israel’s increasing tolerance for terrorism
Prior to the war, Israel had come to terms with a horrible, nearly 20-year-long conceit that it would be “ok” with low-level rocket and other attacks on its Gaza corridor villages as long as this did not touch the rest of the country.
From March 2022 until October 7, 2023, most of Israel came to terms with it being “ok” for significant waves of terror against Jews in the West Bank as long as not too much of it crossed the Green Line.
Starting on October 8, 2023, Israel decided it was “ok” for 60,000 northern residents to be evacuated from their homes and for whole towns and cities to be ghost towns, not just for a few weeks, but for nearly a year and counting with no deadline in sight.
Then, it was “ok” for Eilat to be attacked from time to time by the Houthis as long as the missiles were shot down outside of Israeli airspace.
On April 13-14, it became “ok” for Iran to launch over 300 aerial threats at Israel as long as a remarkable number of the threats were shot down, people were not killed, and Israel got to “deter” Tehran in a retaliatory strike against its S-300 anti-aircraft missile system on April 19.
It was “ok” that Israel got into a huge fight about a partial arms freeze with the US in May and that the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, which had warned Israel but stayed on the sidelines from October to May, went more all out after the Jewish state in May.
It was “ok” that Hezbollah in August wanted to target 11 IDF bases and northern Tel Aviv key intelligence headquarters as long as the military preemptively struck hard enough on August 25 that Hezbollah’s main goals were thwarted.
The truth is that many of Israel’s nuanced approaches would have worked if the war had ended a long time ago or shortly after the nuanced retaliation.
And there were critics of Israel bashing it from November onward.
But when time continues to drag on, Israel’s enemies on many fronts have more time to dissect the way the IDF operates and when and where it lets its guard down more, and then get lots of chances to test the many potential holes. When time drags on, Israel’s legitimacy problems move from critics to its top allies like the US, UK, and France and metastasize with the international courts from a minor problem to a major crisis.
On Thursday of last week, I was in Rafah in Gaza. There were no Palestinians to be seen. No battles. No gunfire. I had my helmet and flak jacket, and they moved us around in a Namer armored vehicle. I felt as safe as could be. Of course, there are still thousands of Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and if anyone ignores them as we did on October 7, there could be another disaster in Israel’s future.
But right now, they can barely pose a threat to IDF forces a block away from them – and that only if the forces are not in Namers and lack air and tank support – let alone to anyone outside of Gaza.
This morning, waking up at 6:21 a.m. in Modiin to rocket sirens after months of quiet, not knowing whether Hezbollah or Iran was firing missiles at us, only to then learn that it was the Houthis, I felt far less safe than I had in Gaza.
When I traveled to Paatei Modiin Train Station Platform 4 this morning and saw the impact of shrapnel on an escalator I have walked on a thousand times, it was clear how many people could have been killed if the Houthis had fired an hour or two later than 6:21 a.m. This is without even getting to the mass mayhem and death that even one ballistic missile getting through to a populated area could cause.
How the war should end, and whether it should be with a quick ceasefire to get back the hostages or with a relatively quick but intense major invasion of Lebanon, synchronized with major strikes on other parties threatening Israel, is an important debate.
Yet, whichever direction is chosen, Israel should pick a direction and act to wrap things up rapidly and decisively.
And anyone who thinks that the war can just continue with no price on these other fronts beyond Gaza until after the US elections in November is kidding themselves and ignoring the writing on the wall on a grossly negligent and serial basis.
The IDF must occupy southern Lebanon to establish a “security corridor” against Hezbollah, Likud MK Ariel Kallner demanded in an interview with Maariv on Sunday.
The coalition lawmaker called on the government, led by his faction leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to address tensions along the northern border by conquering Lebanese lands, from the border to as far north as the Litani River.
“Our reality can no longer continue as is,” Kellner told Maariv. “The sole, unavoidable conclusion is that the current border in the North is unsustainable.”
Kellner further claimed that today’s border between Israel and Lebanon is curbing the government’s ability to “provide security for residents of northern Israel.”Kellner: Life along Israel’s northern border can no longer be supported
When asked about the steps Israel’s military should take to destroy the threat Hezbollah poses on the North, Kellner argued that Israel has only two options: “We either create a ‘security zone’ by controlling the Litani River, or life in northern Israel can no longer be supported.
“That is our equation; there is no other way around it,” he added.
Kellner spoke to Maariv while visiting the North as part of a delegation of lawmakers from the Knesset’s Eretz Yisrael Lobby, which advocates for expanding settlements in the West Bank.
Gallant ‘not the same minister who called to bomb Lebanon’
During his visit, Kellner also attacked Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, calling on him to resign.
As per the Likud lawmaker, Gallant is “no longer the defense minister who spoke on bombing Lebanon back to the Stone Age” and must be replaced.
However, Kellner stressed his support for Netanyahu, arguing that the prime minister “continues to seek out victory” amid international pressure.
-
Solar Energy3 years agoDLR testing the use of molten salt in a solar power plant in Portugal
-
world news10 months ago
Gulf, France aid Gaza, Russia evacuates citizens
-
Camera3 years agoCharles ‘Chuck’ Geschke, co-founder of Adobe and inventor of the PDF, dies at 81
-
Camera10 months agoDJI Air 3 vs. Mini 4 Pro: which compact drone is best?
-
TOP SCEINCE5 months agoCan animals count?
-
Solar Energy10 months agoGlencore eyes options on battery recycling project
-
world news10 months ago
Strong majority of Americans support Israel-Hamas hostage deal
-
Camera3 years ago80,000MP panoramas: EarthCam announces world’s highest-resolution robotic webcam
