The terror attack Tuesday at the Gush Etzion junction, which ended in the murder of Aharon Cohen from Kiryat Arba and the wounding of three other people, illustrates just how great the risk of escalation in the West Bank continues to hover over all of our heads. Israel may prefer, at best, to bury its head in the sand by ignoring the Palestinian Authority and weakening it, or to physically contribute to escalation by granting silent or passive green lights to Jewish terror in Judea and Samaria, but ultimately the fumes are already in the air.
The phrase “third intifada” has been written and spoken countless times (including here) since the end of the second intifada, and yet the conditions for the perfect storm are ripening, and the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is not only ignoring this, but is also promoting the explosion.
And this may sound strange, but let’s start with Iran. Yes, Iran is still the one trying to destabilize the West Bank by every possible means. Iran is pumping unprecedented amounts of weapons into Palestinian cities, whether through the Jordanian border or through Syria and Lebanon.
Just about a month and a half ago, the Shin Bet and the IDF reported the interception of a major arms smuggling operation that included 15 anti‑tank rockets, RPG launchers, drones, 29 advanced explosive devices and more. This seizure is not the first and likely not the last, and we can only guess that, even if Shin Bet and the IDF succeed in thwarting most smuggling, some of the smuggling attempts succeed, and there are currently weapons in the field that we did not encounter previously in the past as part of the second intifada and certainly not in the first. TThe smuggling is being carried out under the direction of the Special Operations Division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, no less. Key figures on the Iranian side are trying to ignite Judea and Samaria after such a severe blow to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But the large quantities of weapons are not enough to create the conditions for a perfect storm. Added to that is the growing erosion of the Palestinian Authority’s power and status. PA President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) turned 90 last Saturday and he is not getting younger. His designated successor, Hussein Al‑Sheikh, enjoys zero popularity in the West Bank and suffers from a particularly corrupt image. He is not expected to bring salvation. And when senior PA officials warned in the past that “you will miss Abu Mazen,” there was something to their words. Abu Mazen may have continued to pay salaries to prisoners, even denied the Holocaust in his doctoral dissertation in the early ’80s, and yet the PA under his leadership took an active role in the war against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Iran.
The motivation for attacks already exists, but Jewish terror only inflames it. The problem is that even a single, seemingly 'small' incident of a 'mini-pogrom' can turn into an ambush by armed Palestinian terrorists
And there is a very good reason why even the right-wing government of Netanyahu‑Ben Gvir‑Smotrich refrains from dismantling the Palestinian Authority and scattering it to the winds. Netanyahu may not admit it, but Israel’s clear interest is that the PA and its security apparatus continue to exist and operate. If these mechanisms cease to operate, the escalation will be faster and deadlier. The problem is that Netanyahu and his partners certainly do not want to strengthen the Palestinian Authority, because then the demand for a Palestinian state would become more tangible.
This was also the source of the perception that rooted the mother of all 7 failures on October 7, which said “Hamas is an asset” and the PA is a burden. Remember that in 2018 it was Abu Mazen who decided to dramatically cut the budgets the PA transfers to Gaza and to Hamas, and the Israeli government in response turned to Qatar to request financial aid to Gaza that subsequently reached Hamas.
And of course it is impossible to ignore Jewish terror in the territories — and any other word would be a slur on what is happening there. Here we are dealing with terror under the auspices of the state, under the auspices of the Israel Police, no less. The Ben-Gvir police as a policy ignores the phenomenon; Shin Bet alone cannot deal with it and the army, in a certain sense, has thrown up its hands.
Avi IssacharoffPhoto: Yuval Chen And so every day we already record small pogroms that sometimes escalate into severe violence, damage to property at best and to people at worst. Many times Israeli security forces or Israeli civilians who try to assist Palestinians during the olive harvest, for example, are attacked.
The danger inherent in all of this is not only that it ignites motivation for attacks - that motivation already exists, but Jewish terror only inflames it. The problem is that even a single, seemingly "small" incident of a "mini-pogrom" can turn into an ambush by armed Palestinian terrorists who will try to harm any Jew who enters their village in order to harm property or human life. And from here to a major explosion the road will be short, perhaps even very short.