Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone attack against Israel last night is the pinnacle of a decades-long Iranian campaign that has been ongoing since the Islamic regime took power during the 1979 revolution. Over the years, Iran has gradually built a sophisticated proxy system and, with the exception of very few instances, has preferred to fight Israel via its proxies. Hiding behind them is part of Tehran’s calculated strategy, which strives to distance Iran from war or any punishment for acts of terror, despite the Islamic Republic’s key role in training, funding, directing, and, at times, actively dispatching its proxies.

Now, feeling obligated to restore its eroded deterrence vis-à-vis Israel following the targeted killings attributed to the latter in Damascus in early April, Iran has chosen to take a public stand and attack Israel directly using its advanced drones and missiles. This is not a comprehensive strategic shift on Iran’s part. As soon as the strike ended, and before its scope had even been confirmed, Tehran clearly signaled, via its UN embassy, that it wished to end this historical event and return to normal.

Israel cannot go back to October 6. It must not allow Iran to surround it with a tightening ring of fire while making intolerable threats of a potentially nuclear nature.

However, Israel does not operate in a vacuum either and is required to coordinate its actions with the Biden administration, both by virtue of the strategic alliance forged between the two countries and in view of the implications of an Israeli assault against Iran on local US forces and interests. Tehran seems to regard the United States as the weaker player in this arena, and therefore, since the Israel-Hamas War broke out, has instructed its proxies to carry out dozens of attacks against US interests in Iraq and Syria, in an effort to make President Biden pressure Israel to stop the war. The partial US response to the lethal drone strike in early January by Iran’s Iraqi proxy, Kataib Hizballah, killing 3 US troops, appears to have only partially and temporarily deterred Tehran. The United States had, once again, chosen to retaliate against the Iraqi proxy, instead of its Iranian master.

Thus, although Quds Force Commander, Ismail Qaani, has reportedly instructed Iraqi Shiite militia groups to desist attacks against US interests, and has probably attempted to convince the Houthis in Yemen to do the same, the Iraqi militias have renewed (albeit not significantly) their assaults against US forces in Syria, while the Houthis continue to attack US sea vessels. Tehran itself, during its strike against Israel last night, threatened to attack any US forces that would help Israel in its retaliation against Iran. It is therefore clear that Iran views the United States as the weakest link and more easily pressured player.

Israel must formulate a comprehensive strategy for a high-intensity campaign against Iran, that could include peaks during which Iran would attempt to take direct action against Israel. Otherwise, Tehran would probably prefer to go back to operating via its proxies, given that direct Iranian actions against Israel would help form a regional coalition against Tehran, composed primarily of Jordan and Egypt, and supported by the United States, United Kingdom, and France (as seen in action last night). Such a coalition could shift from defensive to offensive mode since Iran is threatening to take action against any country supportive of Israel’s defense efforts.

Israel appears to have certain latitude vis-à-vis Iran, despite US pressure. The Biden administration opposes broad conflict that would run the risk of regional war. At the same time, if Israel and the United States choose to restrain their response, Iran would interpret their inaction as permission to attack Israel, the United States’ ally, directly, as well as other US partners in the region (to which Iran poses a threat) without paying the price for doing so. Furthermore, war breaking out between Iran and Israel still seems a long way off, allowing Israel to take action against Iran without necessarily leading the region to war. For instance, Israel could utilize the unprecedented Iranian attack to strike Iran kinetically when it is most suitable and convenient, whereas Tehran, which suffers from an acute domestic legitimacy crisis and can still collectively recall the destruction and aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), would think twice before aggravating its conflict with Israel. The cyberattack weapons that Israel has developed over the years could also serve it to repay Iran by damaging its essential infrastructure in an arena where responsibility is not unequivocally assumed by anyone.

Israel’s updated security strategy should include various aspects, primary among which are: the desirable modus operandi vis-à-vis Iran; increased coordination with the United States on efforts to thwart the drone, missile, and terror infrastructure in Iran and the region; strengthening the IDF’s force buildup so that it would tally with the challenge posed by Iran; and closing the various gaps that enable Iran to carry out cyberattacks and influence campaigns in Israel.

Published in Israel Hayom, April 15, 2024.

The Purim tale, retold through the biblical Book of Esther in Jewish communities around the world this weekend, provides an excellent lesson to presidents, prime ministers, and commoners in understanding the link between providence and human endeavor, and the challenges of Jewish history.

The megillah hints that beyond the intrigue of royal courtyards; behind the politics of a White House or a Kremlin; and besides the movement of foreign and threatening military forces – lies a hidden hand operating on a transcendental plane.

Beyond the grasp of man’s finite mind, there is order and purpose. There is a higher divine order into which man has not been initiated. In short, what appears random, isn’t. The “pur” (the “happenstance” hinted at in the word Purim) is really planned.

And thus, over and above the threatening actors around us – from the time of Haman in ancient Persia to the ayatollahs of Shiite Iran, and from Amalek of Exodus to the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel wildly woke intelligentsia (so-called) of today’s Western world – there is an engaged and concerned God. And he acts to protect the Jewish people, especially when we screw up.

The grand sweep of Jewish history is a sustained tutorial against the evils of brutal dictatorships, totalitarian regimes, and arrogant empires. From the oppression implied in the Tower of Babel story to the slavery of pharaonic Egypt, and from Achashverosh to Nebuchadnezzar, the Bible critiques the politics of absolute power and the penchant of dictators to lord over the Jewish people.

None of these empires lasted too long. And none of these bad actors were able to destroy the physical core and indomitable spirit of the Jewish people.

I see this as a warning to the Islamic Republic of Iran – the most acute wannabe totalitarian hegemon of our times; and to the United Nations or the United States of America – who seek to dictate diplomatically to the modern State of Israel. You cannot succeed!

Concurrently this is a message of reassurance to Jews and Israelis as to how we must view our challenges. The ambitions of Iran to global Islamic empire are ephemeral, and so are the pretensions to power of extreme “progressives” in red-green intersectional alliances who are currently savaging Israel. They will not prevail.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote that “Judaism is the unique attempt to endow events with meaning, and to see in the chronicles of mankind something more than a mere succession of happenings – to see them as nothing less than a drama of redemption in which the fate of a nation reflects its loyalty or otherwise to a covenant with God.”

Thus, Jews and Israelis should understand their current strategic straights as ordained trials meant to be tackled with wisdom and bravery, even defiance. We can and should confront the current attacks with confidence in the power of Jewish history.

We should go forward in the knowledge that the Jewish people and the State of Israel are not alone, even though it certainly feels so at the current moment. As Rabbi Yehoshua Weitzman of the Galilee has taught (with his phrase becoming the key line of a currently popular Israeli song): “The eternal people is not afraid of long journeys.”

As for the current moment, it indeed seems, alas, that Israel’s leaders need to take a strong dose of defiance with their morning coffee. The world seems hell-bent on emasculating Israel, of preventing Israel from achieving its necessary and justified war goals of crushing Hamas and restoring Israel’s regional deterrent power.

The emasculation begins with “small” matters like insisting that Israel’s “primary goal” must be provision of humanitarian aid to an enemy population in wartime, which is an absurdity never broached before in the history of wars.

It continues with deference to the evil regime in Qatar which bankrolls and fronts for Hamas. Unbelievably, Washington is now thinking of contracting-out construction and operation of its new humanitarian aid port pier in Gaza to a Qatari company. (Then Iranian and Turkish ships can dock and deliver “aid,” i.e., weapons and terror tunnel rebuilding supplies, to Hamas freely.)

It continues further with American and European insistence that the necessary next stage of the Israeli military campaign to rout out Hamas, in Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor, is “unacceptable,” a “red line that must not be crossed.” The Biden administration, in particular, outrageously thinks that it can micromanage IDF operations from now on, house-by-house, bullet-by-bullet; handcuffing Israel and driving it into another disastrous draw against Hamas.

The debilitation of Israel continues yet still with arrogant talk of unilaterally recognizing Palestinian statehood and anointing the duplicitous and decrepit Palestinian Authority as a stabilizing force in Gaza – insane, immoral ideas that seed the likelihood of long-term strategic defeat for Israel.

Then there is the new threat of denying arms and munitions to Israel, from spare jet parts to artillery shells. Canada owns the shame of being the first Western country to explicitly declare such a boycott even as Israel fights for its life against a clearly genocidal enemy (Hamas) and prepares to take on yet another (Hezbollah).

The Washington of Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken (and Chuck Shumer, oy) seems to be not too far away from this too, although its arms chokehold on Israel is at the moment more subtle and implicit than public.

And on a broader level, Washington is kowtowing yet again to Iran, unlocking last week upwards of $10 billion in frozen funds for the ayatollahs. This is an Obama administration reflex deeply embedded in Biden’s team that still seeks a grand regional deal with Teheran at Israel’s expense (and that of Israel’s Gulf Arab allies).

Instead of seriously striking at Iran and its proxies (like the Houthis) and countering the IRGC-controlled Shiite crescent running from the Arabian (“Persian”) Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, or doing anything substantial to halt Iran’s race to nuclear weapons, the Biden administration seems obsessed with thwarting the supposedly malign influence and hegemonic ambitions – of Israel.

In the face of these deleterious developments, Israel obviously must continue to dialogue with leaders in Western capitals to reach understandings where possible, but also be prepared to defy them when necessary.

Finishing off Hamas and maintaining long-term control of a security envelope including Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is an essential goal that justifies Israeli defiance of the world. The State of Israel does not shrink from long and knotty journeys.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, March 23, 2024; and Israel Hayom, March 24, 2024.

Israel’s national security situation has taken an acute turn for the worse requiring at least another 7,000 combat soldiers a year for the next decade. But it cannot draft Ultra-Orthodox (haredi) Israeli Jews against their will – no matter what the Supreme Court rules or the Knesset legislates.

Everybody knows that the rapidly growing and politically muscular Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel can no longer altogether avoid military and/or national service. But haredi leaders will not relinquish their rigid communal structure of full-time and lifetime-long Torah study.

Every type of solution for this long-running deep ideological and societal crisis has been attempted over the past 30 years – and failed. This runs from massive government support for haredi integration in higher education and the workforce as a pathway to eventual military service, to choking-off nearly all government support for haredi institutions. From persuasion to coercion. From backing to bludgeon.

There was the Tal Committee outline and Shaked Committee strategy (both of which were legislated in law), the Plesner plan, Peri plan and Stern plan – based on wise commissions that deliberated for years and promulgated visions of change in this matter.

These grand attempts at social engineering and compromise were cut short by impatient judges and politicians, or ignored from the outset by implacable haredi leaders. They failed because narrow and short-term interests trumped long-term thinking and any sense of overarching national unity.

Intra-religious dialogue between Religious Zionist rabbinical leadership (which encourages military and national service) and Ultra-Orthodox rabbinic leadership (which discourages and even emphatically fights against this) has been attempted too – to no avail.

One group of rabbis learnedly quotes impeccable religious texts about the importance of combining national service with Torah study (or, in similar fashion, gainful employment with Torah study), while the other group of rabbis refutes them with proof-texts about the paramount value of Torah study alone and the desirability of standing aloof from secular society and the Zionist state.

Even now, as the most impressive, deeply Religious Zionist young men have been sacrificing themselves on military battlefields in numbers and proportions as never before, and their inspiring, agonizing, heroic stories pierce the hearts of haredi Jews in even the most closed Ultra-Orthodox communities – haredi leadership is not budging.

‘We haredi Jews will abandon the State of Israel and move abroad if anybody dares attempt to draft us into the military’ – snarled the Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef this week.

(Yosef should be forced to watch the YouTube response to his outrageous remarks by Tel Aviv yeshiva dean Rabbi Tamir Granot, whose yeshiva student son, Amitai, was killed fighting in Gaza.)

But most Israelis don’t want haredi Jews to flee Israel, nor do I believe that most haredi Jews would do so, under any circumstances. Building a stronger and better Israel remains the shared national purpose.

And still, there are no good solutions on the table for the haredi draft exemption issue. Everybody knows that the situation is untenable, but nobody has a solution. We’re stuck in a situation where the draft of young haredi men to the military is essential and yet impossible, long overdue and yet unlikely.

IT IS TIME for a new approach to break the logjam, what can be called the “vacation draft plan.” This will allow haredi men to continue learning Torah while serving military or national service during their semester breaks, which last ten weeks a year.

Under my plan, no haredi youngster or married kollel man would have to miss a single day of scheduled yeshiva studies, any time, any year. They would serve only when they are anyway not “studying their hearts out” (or in the literal Hebrew phrase commonly used in the haredi world: “Studying to death in the tents of Torah”).

For the secular or Modern Orthodox Israeli this wouldn’t be a workable solution. In the normal course of things, professional people don’t get enough vacation from work to devote to another significant pursuit. In the working world, most employees (even senior executives) can take, at best, two or three weeks a year in personal vacation time, and this is insufficient for regular service in the army. It’s barely enough time for annual reserve duty. (The self-employed often cannot afford to take even a week off!)

But almost every yeshiva and kollel in this country operates on the same academic calendar with ten weeks of annual vacation time.

Studies begin in the Hebrew month of Elul (August or September) with the first “zman” (yeshiva slang for semester) ending six weeks later before Yom Kippur. Then students and teachers are off on vacation though Succot until the beginning of Cheshvan. Total vacation time, in one lump: Three weeks.

The five-month winter study semester concludes at the end of Adar, whence yeshivas are closed for the entire month of Nissan (including Passover). Vacation time: Another four weeks. The three-month summer semester ends at the beginning of Av, launching another vacation break, amounting to an additional three weeks.

Total vacation accrued, for all junior and senior kollel men, yeshiva boys, and yeshiva educators of all ranks and stripes: ten weeks of annual vacation. Ultra-Orthodox society calls this bein hazmanim (between the semesters).

At these vacation times, you’ll find haredi youth and haredi families travelling the country, visiting its parks, shopping in its malls, and even occasionally travelling abroad – alongside holiday preparations. And yes, they study Torah during these breaks as well, in informal frameworks.

I say that well-endowed-with-vacation haredi men have an obligation to forgo at least some of their time “outside the tents of Torah” to share in the national burden.

It could work like this: For, say, five out of their ten weeks of vacation each year, Ultra-Orthodox men would be drafted into specially-refined, religiously-protective frameworks – ranging from rescue services and rapid-response squads in their own communities to low- and hi-tech support units and even the infantry.

They would serve without missing a minute of any formal ‘seder’ or ‘zman’, without missing a single class or exam, without disrupting their long-term Rabbinic or Talmudic study plans, and without emptying out the yeshivas (which is what the yeshiva deans fear most). And they can stay in the yeshivas and kollels for as long as they want – 20 or 30 or 40 years or a lifetime, if that is what they prefer (and can afford).

Some haredi men might have to miss out on the luxury of having a Pesach seder at home or may have to spend Yom Kippur in the army or in a military hospital pushing wheelchairs, and their wives will alone bear the brunt of holiday preparations – but that’s a small price to pay for national responsibility and unity. A price that non-haredi Israelis have long born. You learn to grin and bear it, and even make this into teachable moments.

Call this giyus bein hazmanim – the vacation draft. Even after serving five or six weeks a year in the army (for multiple years), haredi men would still be left on average with an additional four to five weeks of annual vacation. Like I said, that’s much more than non-haredi Israelis get.

Note: My plan does not require haredi politicians or rabbis to abandon their high principles (– as haredi leaders like to insist: “No one who wants to study Torah should be prevented from doing so, without restrictions or quotas”). My solution won’t require the police to drag a single haredi youngster out of his yeshiva or his home.

Similarly, my solution for this vexing matter won’t require secular Israelis to put aside their nationalistic ethics or their values (as in, “One man, one vote, one soldier – no exceptions”). Nobody will have to stomach the unfairness of sending their son off to the military front while hearing the controversial claim that haredim are “equally putting their lives at stake in the tents of Torah.”

Indeed, my solution for the haredi draft issue embraces the opposing core principles of both the haredi and non-haredi camps, and yet manages to square the circle. It concurrently upholds the belief that the world of Torah study should be allowed to flourish without restriction in the State of Israel, and the belief that it is morally unacceptable that an entire class of Israeli citizens automatically be released from the burden (nay, the privilege!) of defending the country.

I don’t belittle the spiritual importance, for national security too, that the haredi community attaches to constant study of Torah. But I’m saying that haredi men have the time and the ability to also serve in the military without egregiously cutting back on Torah study and without abandoning their unique way of life – if they care to fully share in the national security load and not just hide behind rusty ideological slogans.

For its part, mainstream Israel can facilitate increased haredi participation in the army (and by extension, in broader society) by adopting crafty and non-threatening compromise solutions, such as this proposal.

And in the meantime, until the vacation draft plan is implemented, wouldn’t it be nice if during bein hazmanim haredi men took their Talmuds and sat down to study with IDF soldiers on the Gaza or Lebanon border frontlines?

Published in The Jerusalem Post, 15.03.2024 and Israel Hayom 17.03.2024.

Since the dawn of the Oslo peace process, Israel has insisted on Palestinian demilitarization. This meant that any degree of Palestinian independence from Israel in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza was predicated upon the prevention of symmetrical and asymmetrical military threats against Israel – including conventional warfare, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare – from and via the territory of an autonomous Palestinian Authority or a prospective Palestinian state.

It was explicit in every Israeli-Palestinian deal signed since 1993 that the Israeli public would not countenance living alongside a Palestinian entity that houses a terrorist infrastructure or active, hostile military forces. The definite Israeli assumption was that the IDF could deny or block the massive military armament of a Palestinian government. The unequivocal Israeli expectation was that massive military armament would not be sought by a peaceful Palestinian government.

Alas, three decades of Palestinian terror and missile attacks from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, the Hamas attack on southern Israel two months ago, and the gargantuan caches of weaponry since discovered in Gaza have blown these assumptions and expectations out of the water.

My conclusion is that demilitarization is a myth. In any territory evacuated by Israel, it is neither possible to enforce nor reasonable to expect that.

The attendant conclusion is clear too: only full Israeli military control of the territories adjacent to Israel has any chance of preventing enemy military buildup, and even then, it would remain an ongoing and difficult challenge.

THE IDF has confiscated more than 30,000 rifles, rockets, RPGs, IEDs, and attack drones from Hamas terrorists and hideouts in Gaza over the past two months and destroyed at least 250,000 other such items, along with hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition. It has also captured millions of shekels of cash used for weapons purchases and documents that expose tens of millions more expended on weapons purchases. This does not include the billions apparently spent on building and equipping Hamas’s terror attack tunnel network, an underground network that seems to be 500% more extensive than IDF intelligence knew or presumed to know before the war began.

According to an IDF Special Forces briefing this week, “the scope of the captured munitions is unprecedented. The volume of weaponry, especially anti-tank missiles, is on a scale reminiscent of and even beyond that of the warfare of global jihadist organizations in Syria and Iraq.”

A lot of this weaponry was smuggled into Gaza through tunnels beneath the Philadelphi corridor or through Egyptian-controlled border crossings in Rafah. Additional weaponry was manufactured in Gaza, using machinery and civilian supplies repurposed for weapon manufacture that were imported into Gaza with Israeli approval and even support.

(The same applies to the millions of tons of cement Israel allowed into Gaza for construction and rehabilitation after previous rounds of conflict, much of which was poured into the terror attack tunnels.)

And today, weapons can be produced with 3-D laser printers in any basement hideout; no large and identifiable manufacturing facility is necessary.

Again, all this means that the demilitarization of zones where Palestinians assume governance over themselves is a myth. It is neither possible to enforce from afar nor reasonable to expect it in any territory evacuated by Israel. Only the Israeli military can and will permanently demilitarize Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

And again, even then, demilitarization will remain a challenge. Consider Jenin, for example. The Palestinian Authority has long lost effective control of the Jenin refugee camp and similar terrorist headquarters in Samaria, forcing the IDF to operate deep inside these areas in full battle array with heavy equipment, almost like Gaza.

Hundreds of professional-grade weapons (not just homemade, ragtag weaponry) were discovered and confiscated this month in Jenin, including the beginnings of a West Bank missile manufacturing capability. Much of this was smuggled in via the porous Israeli border with Jordan. (No, the “moderate” Jordanians are not doing nearly enough to interdict such massive smuggling, and neither is the IDF.)

But the only reason that Katyushas and Kassams are not raining down every day from Kalkilya and Jenin on Gush Dan (Greater Tel Aviv) is that the IDF maintains overall security control of the West Bank envelope; direct military control over Areas B and C, which is 80% of the West Bank; and acts aggressively (“full freedom of operation,” in formal terms) to keep the terrorists off base in Area A, which is the remaining 20% where the PA was accorded “full security control” to supposedly prevent militarization and terror.

IT IS IMPORTANT to recognize that this grim situation is very far from the idealized, empty theoretical framework of demilitarization and peace imagined by the Oslo Accords. Was it obvious from the start and inevitable that the PA would become a failed state and serve as a base for terrorist infrastructure? I don’t know. But was the notion of full demilitarization of the territories by Palestinians a fallacy from the very beginning? Apparently so.

Remember that from day one, Yasser Arafat financed, directed, and equipped 16 competing Palestinian Authority militias, providing nearly 60,000 “security forces” with weapons – through local manufacturing and smuggling – that were prohibited in the Oslo agreements. He gave these forces all the trappings of an army (i.e., organizational structure, operational functions, unit names, ranks, etc.), expanding them well beyond what had been agreed upon. Since then, many Palestinian Authority military men and policemen have turned their guns against IDF troops and Israeli civilians, and some reports have them now organizing for Hamas-style raids into Israeli towns too.

According to an analysis written back in 2014 for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an Israeli think tank, by Maj. Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, former chief of IDF military intelligence, the Oslo Accords unambiguously stipulated that no Palestinian army or military capabilities that could constitute a threat would be established. Moreover, the “strong police force” allowed by Oslo was to “ensure demilitarization” by preventing terrorism, dismantling terrorist infrastructures and armed militias, preventing arms smuggling and terrorist infiltration, preventing armed or ideological interference in the proper workings of the Palestinian state by radical extremists and opponents of peace, preventing incitement to terrorism, and building a “culture of peace.”

This was to include neutralizing all channels of support for terrorist organizations (such as the transfer of funds to and activities conducted by extremist associations disguised as organizations established to help the needy) as well as eliminating school curricula as well as sermons in mosques and other religious and cultural institutions that encourage violence, martyrdom, and suicide.

Alas, almost none of this has happened. Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, never ripened into partners for peace. Abbas has not uttered one dash of distaste, never mind a clear condemnation, of the October 7 Hamas attack, and he continues to “pay for slay” (to pay rewards to the families of terrorists).

So, the suggestions to give the Palestinian Authority more authority to expand territory in the West Bank or to bring it back as ruler of Gaza are both outrageous and dangerous. Abbas and his Fatah party never have and never will ensure demilitarization of the territories, not to mention real peace with Israel. And the suggestions to pose a broader pan-Arab security force in Gaza to ensure the demilitarization of Gaza going forward are similarly unrealistic.

Published in The Jerusalem Post 29.12.2023 and Israel Hayom 01.01.2024.

Everybody, from US President Joe Biden to B’Tselem, is propagating the myth that West Bank settlers are exploiting the war against Hamas to invade private lands and attack Palestinians in the West Bank at alarming, never-seen-before levels of violence.

When US Vice President Kamala Harris spoke with President Isaac Herzog amid Israel’s difficult war against Hamas, she found it necessary to scold him about “holding extremist settlers accountable for violent acts.”

The US State Department spokesman this week denounced “unprecedented levels of violence by Israeli extremist settlers targeting Palestinians and their property, displacing entire communities,” no less.

The situation is supposedly so bad, so spiraling-out-of-control, that the US this week announced visa bans on “extremist settlers.” Belgium has now done so too.

Except that it is not true. There is no escalating or unprecedented wave of settler violence in Judea and Samaria under cover of the war in Gaza. The frenzied focus on “settler terrorism,” by the highest officials in Washington, is based on fake news.

And why is such fake news being bandied about?

Apparently, this is to “balance” the crimes of Hamas, a way for wishy-washy friends of Israel or extreme left-wing Israelis to distance themselves from Israeli bad guys (settlers) while being forced, alas, to also condemn Palestinian bad guys (Hamas).

In other words, this is an attempt to uphold some degree of perverse moral equivalence between Israelis and Palestinians; to express equivalent condemnation of “all sides” for the proverbial “cycle of violence” that professional Mideast peace processors and hackneyed journalists like to babble about; for “fair-minded” international observers to make it clear that they are not, G-d forbid, fully on Israel’s side – even at a time when Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have committed the most atrocious crimes.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland are among the worst such offenders. As is their usual rotten wont, they regularly condemn, and this week too, the “continuing cycle of violence” in Judea and Samaria – as if Israelis and Palestinians each were cavalierly engaging in murder just for fun or out of comparable burning hatred.

As if this sets an exculpating background for Hamas’s genocidal rampage of October 7 and its ongoing war crimes, including the holding of civilians as hostages.

TO GET PAST the fog of war, lies, and misinformation I decided to investigate this matter by going straight to the source. I submitted a formal request for information to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), which is the government arm responsible for tracking and countering violence in Judea and Samaria.

From the detailed and precise statistics I received, it is crystal clear that there has not been a significant increase in right-wing Israeli-Jewish violence against Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria since the beginning of the current Gaza war compared to the period of January-July 2023. There certainly has been no uptick or “surge” in settler violence in October-November as compared to the same period in 2022.

(There was a noticeable decrease in such activity in August and September; the reason for this is not explained) Overall, the level of friction/violence in 2023 is about the same as that of 2022, totaling about 1,000 incidences of violence of all types over the course of the full year.

“Violence” in this context means many different things, from verbal altercations and rock throwing (what the ISA calls “frictions” or “harassment”), to spray-painting of anti-Arab slogans and other undercover vandalism including agricultural vandalism (“price tag activities”), to firebombing of homes or mosques (which are classified as outright “terrorist strikes”).

In fact, the more serious type of incidents dropped by 50% as compared to last year (although the handful of incidents that did take place this year were of a more violent nature), and there were zero incidents of “terrorist strikes” over the past 60 days. There is no evidence whatsoever of the wild B’Tselem accusation that “600 Palestinians from 13 communities were forced to abandon their homes” due to fear of settler attacks.

B’Tselem, Yesh Din, the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry, and the fiercely anti-Israel UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), also have fed the international media with blatantly false statistics that allege more than 180 Palestinians have been killed by “Israeli forces and settlers” this year, making it sound, once again, as more innocent Palestinian civilians targeted by “settler violence.”

In fact, 99.9% of these deaths are Palestinian terrorists who were eliminated by the IDF in counter-terror operations against Hamas and Fatah hideouts and weapons factories in Jenin, Nablus, Hebron and elsewhere in the West Bank.

These IDF counter-terror operations are the only thing that prevents the genocidal attacks of October 7 from repeating themselves in central Israel.

But that does not stop the PA or OCHA from pumping out more false allegations of “settler violence.”

It is unfortunately true that altercations and aggressions by settlers in 2022 (again, not 2023) rose sharply over that in 2020 and 2021. Perhaps this is because Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, in fact all citizens of Israel, were subject to a wild wave of murderous Palestinian terrorist attacks in 2022.

In case officials in Washington and elsewhere have forgotten, here is a reminder. In 2022, there were more than 5,000 Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli Jews, including car-ramming, shooting, stabbing, and bombing of innocent men, women, and children. These attacks included over 500 Molotov cocktail attacks (firebombs), leading to the injury of more than 150 Israelis. There was a 210% rise in rock throwing incidents in 2021 compared to 2020, and a 156% rise in bomb throwing incidents in 2021 over 2020.

And in spring-summer 2023, Palestinian terrorists slaughtered close to 40 Israelis in and beyond the Green Line, with more than 3,640 recorded acts of Palestinian and Arab terror throughout Israel, including 2,118 cases of rock-throwing, 799 fire-bombings, 18 attempted stabbings, and six vehicular assaults.

So, is there Jewish violence in Judea and Samaria? Yes. This is unacceptable, and I hold no wellsprings of sympathy for the hilltop wild men involved. Israel must aggressively combat this lawlessness, while acting even more aggressively against exponentially greater and more deadly Palestinian terrorism.

But has there been an enormous, out-of-control surge in settler violence recently? No.

And is there a culture of Jewish violence in settler communities? Also no. In fact, attacks on Palestinian property and individuals committed by a few extremists at the fringes of a half-million-person strong and overwhelmingly peaceful community of Israelis who live over the Green Line calculates to a level of violence that is lower than the level of violence (by Israelis against Israelis) that afflicts greater Tel Aviv.

And without meaning to diminish the ugliness of extremist Israeli attacks on Palestinians, violence by some settlers also pales in comparison to the “regular” 5,000 Palestinian stone-throwing, bomb, and shooting attacks a year aimed at killing Israeli civilians.

And of course, this completely pales in comparison to the 1,200 Israelis slaughtered by Hamas on October 7 or the reign of terror inflicted on all Israelis by the more than 10,500 rockets and missiles fired by Hamas into Israeli civilian population centers over the past seven weeks.

So, at a time when Israel is reeling from the monstrous October 7 Hamas massacre and rightfully expects global support for its war effort against Hamas, it is surreal that some nauseatingly feel the need to conjure-up a false moral counterweight to Hamas violence in the form of non-existent “surging settler violence.”

Essentially, the straw man of “settler violence” is an effort to limit sympathy for Israel and to backhandedly excuse Hamas atrocities. The Harvard and MIT presidents might superciliously say they are “putting the violence of all sides into context.” How noxious.

To the Biden administration I say: Stop throwing “settler violence” in Israel’s face as it fights for its very life against the genocidal Hamas. At best, this is a red herring issue. At worst, it is an ugly attempt to discredit the righteousness of Israel’s war effort.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, December 9, 2023.

“A War of Annihilation” – this is how James Mattis, who served as the US Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, referred to the fight against ISIS in Mosul, Iraq. Between 2016 and 2017, the war in this region during those years was the most intense conflict in a built-up area since World War II. The destruction caused in Mosul was similar in its magnitude to what the Allies inflicted on Dresden in February 1945.

At the end of the battle in Mosul, the UN estimated that over 80% of the city, the second-largest in Iraq, was uninhabitable. A similar experience occurred in Raqqa, Syria, another stronghold of ISIS that was targeted by the U.S. military, which also ended with the label “unsuitable for human habitation.” This is the real corollary that should come with the statement that “Hamas is ISIS.”

On October 7, the Holocaust survivors’ state was attacked by the new Nazis. Their heinous plan and cruelty were on full display for the whole world to see. In this war, Israel has no choice. It must act as the Allies did in their war against the Nazis.

It’s time to dispel the myth that “the Gaza population is a victim of Hamas, which imposed itself on them.” True, not everyone there supports Hamas. There are many who do not share its ways, but the level of support for it undermines the claim that “Hamas does not represent the Palestinians.”

In the 2006 elections, Hamas won the largest share of the vote, with significant support (43%) and representation in more than half of the legislative council seats. The fear of similar results led to the postponement of elections since then.

Opinion polls over the years have indicated its popularity in the general public and especially among the residents of Gaza. Hamas represents the Palestinian ethos at its core: negating the idea of a sovereign Jewish state in the area between the sea and the river. While its military force may number “only” tens of thousands, it enjoys widespread support from the population.

These things need to be stated to balance Israel’s expectations, both on humanitarian issues and regarding the intensity of the fighting, especially considering the cynical exploitation by Hamas of Israel’s restraints and sensitivities.

Moreover, the overthrow of Hamas’ rule and the destruction of its military capabilities, both defined as the goals of the Gaza war, mean that apart from dismantling of Hamas’ command and control structure, we must also deal a crushing blow to its order of battle, its leaders, commanders, and field operatives. These individuals are well-entrenched, using the population as shields or taking cover in buildings that are considered immune from Israeli attack.

After the horrors we have seen, nothing should surprise us regarding their ruthlessness. We must assume that they have boobytrapped everything they could. In this reality, the challenges of warfare are numerous and complex.

Under these circumstances, it is expected that the state’s authorities, its institutions, and its citizens will support the military’s efforts by lifting various constraints. It is important to emphasize that there is no dilemma when choosing between adhering to international law and minimizing the risks to our forces.

The circumstances under which Israel entered the war in Gaza exempt it from dealing with what will happen in Gaza after the war. The reason for this is simple: Israel has no other choice. It must respond with overwhelming force, and let the chips fall where they may.

Any other response could potentially leave it under existential threat. Every other scenario is less severe than that. The question of what will happen after the war should concern us less than the question of what will not be present: There will be no Hamas rule, no military or terrorist capabilities threatening the State of Israel, and Gaza’s humanitarian needs will not be Israel’s concern.

The efforts Hamas invested in the documentation, photography, and dissemination of their horrors can shed light on one of the goals of the attack on Israel: breaking Israelis’ spirit. Indeed, they sought to murder Jews for the sake of murder, to kidnap in order to use captives as human shields and bargaining chips, to carry out complex attacks to project strength and leave a historical mark, to humiliate, document, distribute – to shock and frighten the Israeli society and instill terror and fear in every Israeli.

Viewing Hamas videos or distributing them may serve their purpose. The resilience of a united Israeli society in the face of this monstrous threat and the strengthening of the people’s spirit will thwart their efforts and allow us to eliminate the forces of evil.

Published in  Israel Hayom, October 20, 2023.

“We have no desire for an escalation nor do we seek to engage in fighting, but if we are required to do so we will have no qualms about using the full extent of our military might” – this is the essence of the message that Defense Minister Yoav Galant sought to convey to the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip, during an address he delivered this week commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.

This warning was issued following the recent escalation in the acts of violence and rioting along the border separating Israel from the Gaza Strip, under the direction of Hamas. While Galant was delivering his address, Israel’s Shin Bet Security Agency, better known as Shin Bet, was disseminating one of its many alerts that have become part of our daily routine. This time it involved the exposure of a terrorist cell operating both inside Israel and in Judea and Samaria in order to perpetrate terrorist attacks. In this case, the support and guidance were provided by Iranians.

This alert landed on the editors’ desks of the various media outlets before the ink had time to dry from the long series of alerts from last month. It was preceded by: a notification on the seizure of detonators and standard high explosives at the Kerem Shalom crossing point on the Gaza border, during an attempt to smuggle them into Judea and Samaria, apparently by Hamas in the Gaza Strip; a report on the exposure of a terrorist cell involved in smuggling weapons from Jordan for use by terrorists in Judea and Samaria; as well as the exposure of a smuggling ring in Israel, operating on behalf of Hezbollah, and which among others, was supposed to obtain weapon systems manufactured abroad and then pass them on for use by various hostile elements in Israel.

Playing it safe

This cluster of alerts, which does not include numerous other incidents that form part of the routine security effort, clearly illustrates the enormity of the immediate challenge with which the defense establishment here in Israel constantly must contend. Israel’s adversaries are investing considerable efforts to build terrorist cells, equip them with a variety of weapons, and prepare them to carry out terrorist attacks and additional missions.

This ongoing effort takes place via diverse channels and by numerous parties: Iranians, Hezbollah, Hamas, and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) operatives. It is managed from a number of different locations: Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza, Judea, and Samaria, working with Palestinians from Judea Samaria and Gaza, as well as elements within the Israeli Arab population. All this takes place in addition to local initiatives and other terrorist attacks, often perpetrated by “lone wolves”, which although they might not take place as a result of the direct support and guidance of the established terrorist organizations, are patently inspired by the ongoing, vicious incitement and the general vitriolic atmosphere that these organizations seek to create.

Galant’s statement is a clear reflection of Israel’s interest in avoiding escalation. Indeed, as long as this is not an absolute necessity, Israel has no interest in getting involved in a military escapade in the Gaza Strip or in Lebanon. At this juncture, any anticipated long-term value from such limited military conflicts in these specific theaters does not necessarily justify their security, economic, and diplomatic costs. It goes without saying, of course, that any such development would involve diverting attention, resources, and energies to these theaters, which would be at the expense of the requisite efforts pertaining to Iran, and at the very least would not provide any positive contribution to the ongoing efforts to build regional ties.

This is something that is well understood in Iran, in the Gaza Strip, and in Lebanon, and so the policymakers in Israel are faced with a particularly thorny challenge: how to prevent our adversaries from interpreting Israel’s overall systematic “cost-benefit” analysis as a golden opportunity for them to act against it. Or in plain English: how to cause them to restrain their actions without being sucked into a military conflict. Israel’s security policy is based on the underlying deterrent between us and our enemies. To this, we may add a layer of efforts designed to provide defense, prevention, and countering of hostile activity, as well as non-violent means of leverage such as economic or diplomatic pressure.

Although these efforts are quite effective they are not sufficient to impair our adversaries’ motivation and to strengthen deterrence. But more importantly perhaps, these efforts are generally aimed at quashing ‘clear and present dangers’ rather than the military capabilities and infrastructure in Gaza or Lebanon.

Moreover, the benefit of diplomatic or economic sanctions is generally rather limited when it comes to Gaza or Lebanon. Although the parallel “cost-benefit analysis” of our adversaries might not ignore the interests in these specific spheres, it tends to assume that Israel’s use of these “sticks” will be limited in time or in scope, and so the effectiveness of Israel’s use of such capabilities is consequently most limited, irrespective of the current situation.

Rethink

It might be prudent for the security establishment to take a fresh look at its approach to the cost-benefit analysis of allowing thousands of Gazans to enter Israel every day, especially in view of the desire of Hamas senior figures in the Gaza Strip to ignite terrorism in Judea and Samaria and from it. In any event, the answer to Israel’s dilemma will not come from here.

What more can be done to strengthen our deterrence and to cause the “heads of the snake” to cool their passion when it comes to attacking Israel? Without going into details, I believe that the correct approach would be to increase those offensive efforts that Israel knows so well how to conduct using “stealth” and “discretion”. First and foremost, against those who generate the terrorism. The dangers of opting to go down this path are quite clear and so it is also necessary to make the requisite preparations for any potential escalation, but the deterrent-related benefits from such action are indisputable.

Published in Israel Hayom, October 2, 2023.

In a rather unusual speech, whose content was also disseminated by the Public Diplomacy Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office, the Head of the Mossad threatened that Israel would exact a price from the Iranians “deep in Iran, in the very heart of Tehran”, for any damage to an Israeli citizen or Jewish individual or for the infiltration into Israel of Iranian weapon systems. Barnea explained that this price would be exacted from all the relevant echelons involved in such activity, whether carried out by Iran’s own units or the various proxies operating on its behalf.

When referring to the threat posed by Iran’s military nuclear capability, Barnea reiterated his former declaration: “We simply cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon ever,” and he added: “We are not just sitting idly by.”

Despite the fact that the value of silence has been somewhat undermined in Israel recently, we need not suspect that the Head of the Mossad was speaking off the top of his head. His words were read from a written text and his speech was then widely disseminated.

Fewer words and more actions

Although in his speech he did evoke emotions of national honor and pride, which are in need of an urgent boost at this juncture, we should not necessarily assume that Barnea’s words were aimed specifically at the ears of the Israeli public.  Israeli sentiment tends to prefer actions, as they speak louder than words, and has reservations about the use of bombastic threats that is more characteristic of the style of rhetoric used by our enemies in Tehran, Beirut, or Gaza.

Even if this speech entails an implicit response to the criticism of the policy of containment in relation to Hezbollah’s actions and those of additional adversaries – the public would still prefer that we speak the language of actions rather than words.

Neither are Barnea’s threats necessary for Iran itself. Tehran is well and truly aware of its ‘misdeeds’, and their inherent risks and will clearly be able to make the connection between them and any Israeli response when such action is taken. Should there be any doubt about that, there are numerous ways of issuing hints after such action is taken, that will clearly underscore the connection between the subsequent Israeli operation and Iran’s nefarious activity. As far as Israel is concerned, Washington should be the prime audience for the Mossad chief’s words.

The US administration under President Biden, which has sought to lower the profile of the Iranian problem and to remove the danger of a military confrontation with it as far as possible, is now seeing the tangible results of its policy: a growing sense of confidence in Iran, leading to defiant activity on its nuclear program, providing aid to Russia in the form of supplying Moscow with drones for its combat effort in Ukraine, compounded by a significant increase in its efforts to promote acts of terrorism around the globe, owing to a feeling that it will not be required to pay any real price for all of this.

An accusatory finger

The American concern over becoming bogged down in a military quagmire in the Middle East, which constitutes a significant mainstay of the Biden administration’s policy of restraint towards Iran, might actually eventually lead to the opposite outcome: a regional conflagration as the outcome of the dynamics of action and reaction, in which the US will not be able to remain on the sidelines.

The Mossad chief’s speech, only a few days prior to the arrival of the prime minister in the US for a meeting with Biden and attendance at the UN General Assembly, constitutes a good preparation for these two key events. For understandable reasons, Barnea did not point an accusatory finger at our good friends in Washington, but as the popular idiom has it – he “shouted at the tree so that the camel might hear.”

Although tough Israeli talk on the Iranian issue might not go down too well with those US administration officials, who are currently working hard to establish normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, they do accurately reflect the situation that has developed under the auspices of their policy and will serve to clarify Israel’s current priority: neutralizing the existential threat posed by Iran takes precedence even over normalization with Saudi Arabia.

Published in Israel Hayom, September 13, 2023.

As Israel moves this month to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Oslo Accords, note the following great failure, the failure to prevent the militarization of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza, and by extension Arab communities in Israel.

It is painfully obvious that Israel is suffering from a gargantuan wave of terrorist and criminal violence facilitated and fueled in part by the unbearable ease of obtaining weapons; by the insanely widespread availability of weapons. The weapons available to every terrorist and criminal gang are increasingly advanced, sophisticated, and professional grade.

The results are horrific: Close to 40 Israeli Jews killed in Palestinian terror attacks in 2023, and over 170 Israeli Arabs and Bedouin Arabs killed by other Arabs in crime related and gang violence. Despite all IDF counter-terror operations and police interdiction efforts, the proliferation of weaponry is on the sharp rise and so is the murder rate. This is both a critical security issue and a cardinal societal matter; a crisis of monstrous proportions.

Ask any government or military official just how much unlicensed and illegal weaponry is on the loose in Israel (primarily in Israeli and Bedouin Arab communities) and in Palestinian areas, and you will not get an answer. Nobody knows for sure, and estimates vary from “massive” to “berserk” and “unlimited” amounts. More than a decade ago, police estimates stood at half a million weapons, and since then, well, only G-d knows how many more weapons are out there.

Where has all the weaponry come from? According to a State Comptroller’s report from 2019, there are multiple sources: Cross-border smuggling, local manufacture, theft from IDF bases, theft from Israeli homes, and more. Iran is publicly claiming “credit” for a percentage of the weapons inflow, and it is certainly funding much of it.

(In August 2022, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Hossein Salami bragged how he was driving weapons to Palestinians engaged in “jihad” against Israel, adding that just as Iran managed to send weapons to Gaza in the past, “the West Bank can be armed in the same way, and this process is happening.”)

The smuggling of weapons from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt appears to be the current greatest challenge. A July study entitled “Guns, Drugs, and Smugglers: A Recent Heightened Challenge at Israel’s Borders with Jordan and Egypt” by Dr. Matthew Levitt and Lauren Von Thaden of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point of the US Army) indicates that for every smuggling attempt identified, thwarted, or disrupted by Israeli authorities, a vast number of other smuggling forays get through successfully without authorities ever learning about them.

Sure, Israeli guards along the Jordan border have over the past two years intercepted 1,600 weapons destined for Palestinian terrorists and Arab criminal gangs in 26 separate smuggling attempts.

In April this included a Jordanian parliament member who was caught trying to smuggle 200 weapons into the West Bank. In June, this included professional grade Iranian-made explosives.

But IDF officials admitted to the American researchers that the Jordanian border is long and porous, and that most of the time the IDF’s Bedouin trackers discover cross-border incursions only after the fact. Despite the enormity of the problem, only one division of IDF troops holds down the entire Jordanian border from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, and only one division more patrols the Arava from the Dead Sea down to Eilat.

Occasionally, the army and/or the police will trumpet a particularly large arms shipment interdiction or sizable cache of arms that was discovered and seized in the Negev, Galilee, or West Bank. In 2022, this amounted to over 500 guns and rifles plus mines and IEDs, hand and stun grenades, and bricks of explosives; up by more than a third for 2021. Ninety-two percent of the arms smugglers and dealers that were arrested were Arab or Palestinian.

But all this is what in Yiddish is termed “kleinigkeit,” or small potatoes. It is a drop in the bucket. Weapons continue to be easily smuggled-in to Israel in substantial numbers. They also are being stolen from Israeli depots with alacrity. Last October, 30,000 bullets were stolen from ammunition warehouses in the IDF’s Sde Teiman base in the south. In November, 70,000 bullets and 70 grenades were stolen from an IDF base in the Golan Heights in the north.

(Israeli interdiction efforts have had an impact, if at all, only on the price of weaponry available to crime syndicates and terrorist groups. A single 9mm bullet for a handgun might today cost as much as $10. Handguns reportedly cost $13,000 to $23,000 on the black market, depending on age, type, and condition. The same weapon, legally obtained in Israel, costs around $1,350. The price of an M4 rifle has shot-up to about $30,000 compared to only $5,000 in Lebanon; the Kalashnikov assault rifle costs about $20,000; and an old M16 rifle sells for about $16,000. As a result, according to the IDF, Bedouin and Arab smugglers can make a profit of around $60,000 from one smuggling operation, and Egyptian smugglers can earn $30,000.)

THE DIRTY SECRET behind the untamed epidemic of weapons now plaguing Israel is that it all started with the Oslo Accords when Israel agreed to give the Palestinian Authority (PA) arms. There is a direct line that runs from Oslo to the current Israeli Wild West situation.

Israel provided Yasser Arafat’s police force with tens of thousands of rifles and hundreds of tons of ammunition. These weapons soon ended-up in the shooting arms of Arafat’s 16 different declared security organizations and many other declared and undeclared terrorist factions.

At first, Israel sought to monitor and therefore control the use of its weapons in the Palestinian Authority by registering the ballistic signature of every gun and rifle before transferring them to Arafat. But the Oslo-era enthusiasm for “strengthening” the Palestinian Authority led to more and more helter-skelter arms handovers, with Israel soon losing track of the weapons.

The US and other Western countries involved in providing security assistance and training to the PA also were supposed to have a handle on this, but they too soon lost track of the swelling armories of Yasser Arafat and his multiple organizations of gunmen.

Much of this Israeli-provided weaponry was directed at Israeli civilians and IDF troops during the so-called Second Intifada, leading to the need for Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.

For a while, this operation indeed led a renewed tight Israeli grip on the flow of weaponry into and within Palestinian areas. But in 2004 then-Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz re-approved gun licenses for all PA police officers. Over the years since, and under American pressure to ease-up on the PA and “strengthen” Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas, the IDF has further relented, leading to the current weapons-loose state of affairs.

Today, the Israeli Arab/Bedouin and Palestinian Arab weapons economy is thoroughly integrated, with smugglers, thieves, manufacturers, and suppliers such as the Iranians, servicing both the terrorist and criminal markets interchangeably and interdependently.

For this, I blame Israeli military leaders going back three decades who not only soft-pedalled the dangers of Oslo, but also promised Israelis a demilitarized West Bank and Gaza under all political circumstances.

I blame three decades of military experts in charge of securing Israel’s borders, which as detailed above, alas, are perfectly porous.

I blame police officials in charge of law and order in Israel’s minority communities, which everybody knows have become mafia fiefdoms with nightly shootouts.

All these security officials have utterly failed in their core tasks over the past 30 years. One more aspect of the sad Oslo legacy.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, September 8, 2023; and Israel Hayom, September 10, 2023.

We are in a state of lawlessness. “This is an emergency that requires determined steps by the state to root out crime and violence and to prevent the loss of life”. This statement, made by President Isaac Herzog, perfectly summarizes the state of affairs in Israel in the wake of the deadly crime plaguing the Arab sector.

There is no point in explaining how dire the situation is. An increasing share of the public feels the state no longer performs the basic duties it has toward its citizens: protecting them and their property.

This reality has major ramifications nationally and on an individual level: It creates a feeling of lost personal safety and the inability to lead a normal life, while simultaneously undermining Israel’s image on the world stage, and creates a basis for the claim that it deliberately discriminates and neglects the Arab community. It also has the effect of pushing the young Arabs into crime families, since they are no longer of the view that the state can provide for their security and protection. The declining personal security has also had the effect of changing how families conduct their day-to-day affairs in the Arab sector.

The police are not indifferent to the struggles of the public. It is well aware of what is expected of it in terms of providing immediate ways to address things effectively, and despite the scathing criticism it faces, it still has an important role to play. It has been proactive and has been acting with great efforts, but the challenge has become too great and can no longer be dealt with using the conventional tools at its disposal.

But this reality is not sealed in fate. The state has proved that it knows how to deal with such complex challenges. Here are five decisions that could create a turning point and significantly move the battle against crime forward.

1. Defining the fight against crime as a national mission that is spearheaded by the prime minister: To successfully deal with the challenge, it is vital that the response be part of a multi-agency process synchronized at the national level through various ministries, municipalities, and other relevant bodies. On top of the national security minister, all related ministries should take part in this effort, including the Prime Minister’s Office, the Justice Ministry, the Defense Ministry, the Finance Ministry, and the Interior Minister. Having the prime minister lead this effort is crucial not just because of the message this would send, but also to ensure that all the ministries and authorities are involved on a personal level and to integrate the various bodies and apparatuses that are directly subordinate to the prime minister. It would also help cut inter-agency red tape when it comes to making decisions. A holistic, comprehensive, and methodical approach must be taken, and all those involved may be part of the process. Benchmarks, with clear quantitative measures, would be set, as well as a timetable to have them realized, with ongoing oversight by the prime minister and complete transparency to the public to win back its trust and restore its security.
2. Using the Shin Bet security agency to the fullest extent as allowed under the law. Rather than wasting time on redefining the current definitions, it would be best to see what can be done under the current framework, under the loosest possible interpretation. This practical approach will be acceptable for the Shin Bet as well and will allow it to preserve its resources and capabilities, especially in light of the rising threat of terrorism.
3. Using, in a measured and monitored way, administrative detention to deal with the threats to public safety even when this is not terrorist-related. The criticism over using such tools in a democratic society is valid. As is the fear of a slippery slope. But in the grand scheme of things, this is a necessary evil because there is no available alternative for law enforcement when it comes to neutralizing immediate threats. It would be proper to set processes that would let agencies use this tool on a temporary basis, so long as it is within reason and under oversight.
4. Fighting the black market: Dramatic reduction of cash-only transaction. It would be appropriate to task the Finance Ministry to devise a whole host of measures for the immediate and long term in order to bring about a major reduction in such transactions, financial fraud, and money laundering in order to make life harder for crime gangs.
5. Cracking down on arms trafficking and illegal trade of weapons: To do this, Israeli intelligence agencies and interrogation units in the Israel Police must be bolstered, even if that comes at the expense of other efforts. Arms-related felonies should potentially be classified as terrorist-related, which would allow the Shin Bet to get involved in such cases and will bolster deterrence in light of the seriousness such crimes get among law enforcement agencies.

Increasing activity along the abovementioned areas will require an adjustment of the resources and capabilities at the State Attorney’s Office, the courts, and the Israel Prison Service, otherwise, each one of those changes could turn out to be a bottleneck and slow down the process, thus hindering the arrival at the desired destination.

The state of personal security is at a low point, which makes it impossible to wait until the long-term plan is fully implemented. The leaders of the Arab sector today are not only keen to see this through but also insist on having it implemented and are willing to make significant concessions toward this. The state agencies must act in an emergency mode, to build their force on the go, and to take immediate measures in that direction, however imperfect they may be so that the bleeding is stopped and the sense of personal safety is restored.

Published in Israel Hayom, August  26, 2023.