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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.
This week, a special tour group of Knesset members is expected to visit various schools in east Jerusalem as part of the work of the ‘Subcommittee for Curricula in east Jerusalem and Their Supervision’ headed by MK Avichai Boaron of Likud. Due to security and political sensitivities, only subcommittee members will be allowed to participate in the visit under heavy security.
During the visit, Knesset members will be able to discuss and meet face-to-face with relevant factors in the education system, learn about existing challenges and opportunities, and examine ways to improve and enhance learning and teaching processes to meet the government’s targets for transitioning students from Palestinian to Israeli curricula.
MK Boaron emphasized that the visit is intended to allow Knesset members to get a firsthand impression of what’s happening in East Jerusalem schools and to formulate an up-to-date and accurate picture that will serve as a basis for promoting wise and effective policy in the field of education in the eastern part of the city.
Boaron added, “The subcommittee under my leadership is committed to working to improve the quality of education in East Jerusalem, while ensuring quality curricula adapted to the needs of the students. We believe that education is the key to integration and advancement of society in the eastern part of the city, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that every student gets the opportunity to realize their potential.”In a discussion held a few days ago in the Education Committee’s subcommittee, the data behind the government’s decision regarding education in East Jerusalem was revealed, budgeted at one billion NIS, and far from meeting its goals.
The committee’s findings
The committee also revealed that 6000 out of 6700 teachers were trained in the Palestinian Authority, and 85 percent of schools (over 90,000 out of 110,000 students) still study the Palestinian Authority’s curriculum.
The data also showed that close to 200 million NIS from the amount allocated for this matter in the government’s decision were invested in the program. Still, only 2000 students have transitioned in the last two years from the Palestinian program to the Israeli program. In fact, the State of Israel invests one million NIS to transition a student in East Jerusalem from the Palestinian program to the Israeli one.
In the discussion ahead of the special tour, Boaron said, “This committee was established to deal with a problem that is nothing less than a powder keg placed in the heart of Jerusalem, the capital city of the State of Israel. Before we go to ‘de-Nazify’ the students of the Gaza Strip, we must examine the learning content here in Jerusalem. After many years under the minister’s leadership, incitement content was removed from the learning materials. In parallel, about a year and a half ago, the minister led a government decision to replace the Palestinian curriculum with an Israeli curriculum. This decision is good and important. However, this decision did not bring about the desired change – east Jerusalem residents are not interested in adopting the Israeli curriculum, and the teachers themselves are not willing to teach the program.”
“My colleagues and I will do everything to change this delusional reality. This intolerable situation cannot continue.” He continued.
“The latest government decision on this issue speaks of slow and gradual treatment of the problem before us, but this is a big mistake. The treatment of this problem must be sharp and quick. In the coming months, if the situation does not change significantly for the better, I will turn to the Prime Minister and recommend canceling the government’s decision on the matter and making a completely different decision. We need to deal with the complex problems existing in the current education of east Jerusalem students in a much more stubborn and severe manner than what is happening today. The committee’s discussions help us understand the scope of the problem and its severity and decide on the best tools to deal with its correction.”
Following that discussion, MK Boaron sent a letter to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Education, and other officials to share the data and conclusions and even proposed an innovative idea to examine cooperation with Arab countries and connect them to the education system in east Jerusalem.
“Education in east Jerusalem is a national event, no less.” MK Boaron concluded, “And that’s how it should be treated, with seriousness and gravity. For decades we have allowed this bomb to grow quietly and without interference, with God’s help we intend to study the issue in depth, and lead significant processes in the matter together with all the factors, the existing situation must change.”
There is no question about it: Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar has trapped somebody – the only question is whom? Has he trapped Israel into falling clumsily into the regional war that he always wanted on October 7, with all of the negatives that entails?
Or has he trapped Iran, and its main proxy Hezbollah, into prematurely wasting their great moments, capabilities, and threats to aid Sinwar’s lost cause in Gaza, instead of reserving them to deter Jerusalem from attacking Iran’s nuclear program?
Going back in time, Sinwar’s calculation – until now, miscalculation – was that if he invaded southern Israel, Hezbollah, Iran, Yemen, Syrian militias, West Bank terrorists, and Arab Israelis would all join in.
In his best-case scenario, Hezbollah would have invaded Israel’s northern villages just as Hamas was invading the South, providing a one-two punch that would have confused and paralyzed the IDF even more than it was from Hamas’s stunningly successful initial thrust.It also would have rocketed large portions of Israel to create further chaos and disorder and put Israelthe Jewish state on the defensive.
Instead, Hezbollah sufficed with a mostly symbolic (at a strategic level) string of rocket and drone attacks on only on Israel’s villages and cities located very close to the border.
At the earliest stages, Hezbollah did not attack the Golan Heights or places like Safed, Acre, or Nahariya.
Yemen never joined in anything more than a sporadic way and onwith a significant delay.
Iran neverdidn’t joined until April, and since then has mostly remained on the sidelines.
The other fronts have been quiet or nonstrategic factors.
But maybe after waiting 11 months, Sinwar could have trapped Israel into picking a larger fight with Hezbollah, which could finally bring Hezbollah, Iranthe Lebanese-based terrorist group, its Iranian sponsor, and others into the war in a more full-fledged fashion.
Sinwar also hoped to delay or end the trend of Israeli normalization with moderate Sunni Arab countries, such as with the Saudis, which seemed imminent in September 2023.
LastLastly, he hoped to undermine Israel’s alliances with the US, UK, and EU, and to get Israel in trouble with international courts.
In turn, this could lead Israel to finally agree to his terms of allowing Hamas to remain in power and to releasing massive numbers of Palestinian security prisoners. He could then be seen as the new Palestinian “Saladin” of the 21st century – the man who brought Israel to its knees and forced it to recognize Hamas.
This is no fantasy.
Normalization with the Saudis has been delayed, alliances with the West have been frayed, and international courts are after Israel in an unprecedented fashion, even as compared to prior wars.
The unanswered dilemma is who will come out on top in the escalating conflict with Hezbollah.
If Hezbollah manages to harm Israel enough with its rocket arsenal or outlast Jerusalem enough to force improved ceasefire terms for itself and Hamas, Sinwar’s trap will have succeeded, albeit with an 11-month delay.
But this is far from the most likely scenario.
Since last Tuesday, Hezbollah has been battered and pummeled in ways it never expected.
The Lebanese terror group has lost 3,000-4,000 fighters, its Radwan commander Ibrahim Aqil and 13-15 of his subordinate commanders, more than 500 rocket launchers, and many thousands of rockets.
What if the IDF at some point overcomes Hezbollah’s ability to swarm it with long-range precision rockets and enormous volumes of short-range rockets?
What if the IDF at some point achieves an overmatch capability against Hezbollah where its main threats against Israel are neutered, if not neutralized?
Shockingly, this might even be possible without an invasion.
Or what if the IDF manages an invasion of Lebanon without Hezbollah being able to destroy large stretches of the home front with its rocket arsenal juggernaut, as had always been predicted in worst-case scenarios?
The whole purpose of Hezbollah from Iran’s perspective, which provides its rocket arsenal, funding, and training, was to deter Israel from ever attacking Tehran’s nuclear facilities, lest it give up its ace in the hole.
What if Sinwar had led Hezbollah into a war it was not ready to fight, with the IDF achieving massive strategic surprise and suddenly degrading the Hezbollah threat to a point where it no longer served to deter the Jewish state from acting against Iran?
In that case, Sinwar’s trap will have boomeranged into undermining the head of the axis of Middle Eastern evil, Iran, as well as defanging its top proxy threat – Hezbollah.
He would then go down in history as not only the destroyer of Gaza but as the gambler who bungled decades of careful Iranian planning and put Israel in its strongest security position in years
Abd Al-Salam Haniyeh, the son of the killed Hamas terror leader Ismail Haniyeh, claimed in an August interview with SamaQuds that his father rejected the “deal of a century” which would have seen the establishment of Palestinian statehood, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Haniyeh Jr. claimed that the deal would have allegedly seen billions invested into Gaza.
“May our hands be paralyzed if we sign an agreement which would separate Gaza from Palestine,” the Hamas leader has allegedly said in response to the proposed deal.
The deal would have also encompassed the disarmament of Hamas.
Haniyeh also claimed that media coverage of the 2008-2009 conflict also saw increased convoys entering the Gaza Strip, which led to more active construction of terror tunnels.
Rejecting statehood
The Palestinian leadership has rejected multiple deals that would see the establishment of Palestinian statehood. In 1936, the British offered the Peel Commission, which would have seen a separate Arab state but which was rejected by the Palestinian leadership, according to CIJA.
In 1948, Palestinian leadership rejected the Partition Plan, which also encompassed an opportunity for statehood. In 2000, under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, again rejected an offer of statehood. Finally, as referenced by Haniyeh, in 2008, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected a land-for-peace offer.
Hamas officials have continued to speak against a two-state solution in conversation with Arab media, insisting on a singular Arab nation.
Ismail Haniyeh
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in July while attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran.
While Israel neither accepted nor denied responsibility for the attack, Iran has promised to retaliate.
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