We do not have the luxury of looking the other way. There is a deteriorating situation in Palestinian Arab areas of Judea & Samaria with regard to terrorism.
The picture is shifting and has become considerably more complex:
The terror hotbed is expanding beyond Jenin, southward, which means toward Judea (and Hevron). And there is now greater involvement by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
According to Yaakov Lappin:
“Localized terror groups with names like Lions’ Den and the Jenin Battalions are joined by established terror factions Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which back them with cash, arms and political support.
“Whereas once Hamas insisted that those who act with its support swear allegiance to it, it has since dropped such conditions, recognizing that a new and more independent generation of Palestinians in Samaria can be activated with incitement and terror financing, without the need for direct allegiance.”
https://www.jns.org/jns/palestinian-terrorism/23/6/22/297025/
According to Yoni Ben Menachem, “There are about 20 armed terrorist groups carrying out attacks.”
https://arabexpert.co.il/en/2023/05/31/8610/
This is not a typo: Wrap your head around this statistic.
The Palestinian Authority is not confronting these groups – chooses not to/is too weak to do so. A power vacuum is expanding in the region and terror groups are moving in.
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Caroline Glick has written about underlying factors fueling the increase in terrorism. Among those factors (emphasis added):
There is a greater availability of weapons.
“Weapons enter Judea and Samaria from Jordan…over the past year or so [Jordanian military forces] have become increasingly lax in policing the frontier. Politically, Jordan has also become more hostile to Israel.”
Iran is the major supplier of the weapons to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) that come via Jordan.
“Enjoying the sudden windfall of $2.8 billion in oil and gas revenues that the U.S. instructed Iraq to unfreeze and transfer to Iran last week, Iran is eager to step up the Palestinian terror war against Israel.
“…this week, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and PIJ leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah were in Tehran meeting with Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi, who have both called for wide-scale terror assaults against Israel.”
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There is strong motivation on the part of both Israel and the US to keep King Abdullah II on the throne in Jordan because radical groups would move in if he were gone. But does this mean no pressure can ever be applied?
Late in 2022, the US and Jordan signed a Memorandum of Understanding. “Under its terms, the United States will provide $1.45 billion per year in foreign assistance to Jordan for the next seven years. The MOU will support key reforms led by King Abdullah’s government, including tackling the water crisis and expanding economic opportunities.” (Emphasis added)
Secretary of State Blinken, who signed on behalf of the US, called this “One of the most significant bilateral instruments of its kind.”
https://editorials.voa.gov/a/u-s-and-jordan-sign-memorandum-of-understanding/6765763.html
In light of this largesse, it should be possible for Blinken to communicate to Jordan in appropriate diplomatic terms a US expectation that policing at the border with Israel will be tightened. But this would require Blinken and company to be genuinely concerned the lives of Israeli Jews, would it not?
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At the very same time, US officials appear to have no compunctions about leaning on Israel to make concessions for the Palestinian Arabs.
Writes Glick:
“In recent years, the IDF General Staff brushed off efforts by successive governments to carry out major counterterror campaigns. Under both the Obama and Biden administrations, IDF commanders have insisted on bowing to U.S. pressure to diminish security restrictions on Palestinian movement and permit more than a hundred thousand Palestinians from Judea and Samaria and Gaza to work in Israel.”
I have been advised that the pressure from the US is enormous, but this fact certainly renders the situation no less disturbing – i.e., it does not excuse IDF brass.
“In recent months, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, the head of IDF Central Command, has repeatedly refused government and public appeals to restore roadblock checkpoints removed from Palestinian population centers in the Jordan Valley and northern Samaria. Repeated acts of murder of Israeli civilians have occurred since April that could have been prevented had the terrorists been subjected to inspection at these checkpoints.”
https://www.jns.org/israel-palestinianconflict/palestinian-terrorism/23/6/21/296993/
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With regard to the Biden administration’s direct contribution to terrorism, Daniel Greenfield had this to say (emphasis added):
“When Secretary of State Blinken met with PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas, he boasted of the over billion dollars in aid that the Biden administration had programmed for the terrorist territories.
“That aid has come with a very heavy price.
“In Feb 2019, President Trump’s total cutoff of aid became official. That year, 10 Israelis or people in Israeli controlled areas were killed in stabbings, shootings, rocket and other attacks, down from 12 the previous year…
“In 2020 however only three Israelis were killed…These numbers reflected the diminished capacity of the Islamic terrorists.
“The numbers turned around dramatically once again in 2021…In April 2021, the Biden administration restored aid to the PLO.”
And now in 2023, with the year only half over, we have already seen 28 deaths.
“What a difference a billion dollars makes…
“The Biden Administration is well aware that the PA pays Palestinian terrorists to injure or kill innocent Americans and Israelis in Israel [pay for slay]. Yet, [it operates] in blatant violation of the Taylor Force Act, a federal law that prohibits the government from sending American taxpayer dollars to the PA until it stops supporting terrorism…
“The billion dollars in aid is a factor, but an even bigger factor is that the Biden administration, like its Democrat predecessor, has made no secret of its support for the Palestinian Authority. And the Biden administration has gone even further with its diplomatic support for the PLO regime and its pressure on Israel. The latest murders are the work of a terrorist group that knows that Washington D.C. has its back and will intervene to protect it from Israel.
“The Biden administration’s decision to appoint Hady Amr, an open supporter of Islamic terrorism and opponent of the Jewish State, as its key liaison to the PLO…has consequences, and dead bodies in Jerusalem are among the most obvious ones.
“Islamic terrorism runs on money and foreign support. The Biden administration has provided both.”
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My friends, this needs to be shared very broadly.
Every American who loves Israel should not only get the word out on this, but also be screaming loud and long about Biden’s anti-Israel, terror-supporting, law-defying policies.
As noted by Glick, above, Biden’s release of funds to Iran makes it possible for Iran to increase its support of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
What I will add here is that the US has just increased its support for UNRWA, to the tune of an additional $16.2 million this year, bringing the total to $223 million.
Israeli education watchdog Impact-se charges that “UNRWA not only teaches the hate filled Palestinian curriculum but produces its own extremist teaching materials.”
So, precisely what does the Biden administration care about?
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We here in Israel must demand that policies to protect Israelis not be weakened at the behest of the Biden administration.
It is of immediate concern that checkpoints go up. Binyamin Regional Council Head Israel Gantz is pushing for a return of the IDF checkpoints on the roads that connect Jewish and Arab communities in Judea and Samaria. “In the absence of checkpoints in places which are prone to disasters, the terrorists’ movement is free and easy both to the place of the attack and on the way back.”
As well, security checks on those Palestinian Arabs seeking Israeli work permits must be more stringent.
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I want to touch upon the sensitive issue of a rampage of some 200 Jewish locals that took place in the Palestinian Arab village of Turmus Ayya, near Huwara, less than a day after the terrorist murders in Eli. It is important to emphasize that the attack was not against people. In the main, the Jews set fire to cars and fields. There is question as to whether any houses were torched, or, in a handful of instances, flames from nearby fields spread to homes.
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/terrorism-news/enraged-jews-fight-back-against-terror/2023/06/21/
The response almost across the board in Israel was that this was wrong, it was terrorism, it was not the way Jews act.
My response was a bit different, a bit tempered. I could not endorse this. I would deplore instances in which Jews killed Arab bystanders in the course of such a rampage, and it would be unfortunate if this became routine. It certainly makes Israel look bad in the eyes of an unsympathetic world and renders it more difficult to make our case. (Not that anyone is interested in our case anyway.)
And yet, and yet, I could almost endorse it. Because I understood their rage. And I think it’s important for my readers to get this. I, too, felt rage on learning of the murder of the four innocents in Eli. I wept at my computer, but along with the pain also felt fury that this could happen. Again.
This must not be seen as an act morally equivalent to the terror attacks of the Arabs.
It is important, I think, for people to understand this – to recognize how it feels to be vulnerable. And certainly it’s not a bad thing in Palestinian Arab towns where there is great sympathy for terrorists, that they should feel vulnerable for a change.
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Finally, a different position from that espoused by most of our leaders. Shmuel Medad, CEO of the pro bono legal aid organization Honenu, spoke out on Saturday evening in response to the condemnation of Jewish rioters by the police commissioner:
Said Medad (emphasis added):
“Unfortunately, the IDF forces and the police are failing in the face of terrorism and are standing on the other side…The Commissioner and the Chief of Staff failed. I call on them – give security to the Jews or turn in the keys. You turn the victims into aggressors, your statements now serve only to cover up your failure in the war against the Arab terror that is killing us.
“…instead of fighting terrorism, the police and the IDF take out their frustration on Jews who can no longer be murdered in silence and protest against it…The system must give the soldiers and the settlers security and not the other way around. Demand this with all your strength.” (Emphasis added)
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/flashes/610231
There is a great deal more to this story, and I may yet return to it. But you have already read, above, about Jewish lives that could have been saved had the IDF put up checkpoints.
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© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
