Current Events: West Bank Violence, Explained

Current Events, Episode 143

Current Events: West Bank Violence Explained

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Why the sudden burst of horrific violence in the West Bank this week? Hamas is making a play to take over the West Bank, ratcheting up attacks on Israel. And Israeli settler extremists are emboldened by support from their government to ramp up their own attacks on Palestinians, including the destruction of the village of Huwara. A weak Palestinian Authority that can’t provide security…plus increased Israeli raids targeted terrorists…all makes for a highly combustible situation that many fear is now igniting.

Here we are again. Palestinians kill Israelis. Israelis respond and kill Palestinians. And back and forth. It’s the “cycle of violence” that we all know is endemic to this part of the Middle East. The media writes headlines like “Car rams two Israelis” as if the car was driving itself; and more headlines, “Israelis kill three Palestinians,” without mentioning that those Palestinians were shooting at Israelis while trying to evade arrest on murder charges.

It’s a tragic story but a usual one. The backdrop to the Middle East that we can mention in passing but not dive into.

Except that what’s happening this week is not that. This isn’t the “cycle of violence” but much more serious, deadly, and alarming. Recent weeks have seen numerous terror attacks against Israelis from Palestinians in the West Bank, attacks which have claimed several lives, including two brothers ages 4 and 6 standing at a bus stop with their father. At the same time have been numerous Israeli army raids against terrorist cells in the West Bank in an attempt to make arrests, in which several terrorists and a few also innocent civilians have been killed.

And then came an Israeli settler attack on the Palestinian village Huwara, in which hundreds of extremist Jews (well, terrorists) torched buildings, cars, anything they could get their hands on, killing one person. It was a revenge attack for an attack the previous day that killed another set of brothers, ages 19 and 21. This was a coordinated attack celebrated on social media, and images have emerged of the settlers holding a regular prayer service while the village burns in the background. Which may or may not be a war crime, as some are alleging, but it certainly is a crime against every fundamental Jewish and human value.

So what is going on? Why is the West Bank exploding right now? As I say, this isn’t just your usual (if it ever is) “Palestinians hate Israelis and vice versa.” What is happening is two things: the Islamic terrorist group Hamas is trying to take over the West Bank. And Israel’s most militant settlers have been emboldened, supported, and encouraged by some of the extreme nationalists currently serving as high-ranking ministers in the Israeli government.

Last episode we talked about Israel’s internal crisis over the judicial overhaul legislation, which is still ongoing. Today we’re talking about the crisis of violence in the West Bank, and why some fear it may escalate to full-blown war.

The Context

Let’s dispense with what is not happening. This wave of Palestinian violence is not because Israel elected an ultra-right-wing government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His extremists are making the problem worse, but this violence started before this government was either elected or came to power, and they are not the cause.

Also not the cause is Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Here again they make the problem worse and provide a convenient excuse for terrorism. But Palestinian violence has been around for decades even before the settlements began, and these organizations have always been clear that they consider all of Israel to be a settlement, not just the West Bank. Anywhere a Jew lives, whether the West Bank or the beach in Tel Aviv, is the Occupation. The goal is not to end Israeli rule in the West Bank but the existence of Israel in its entirety.

Still, the Occupation and the settlements and the right-wing government all have a role to play. But they are not why this is happening. This is happening because Hamas is using violence against Israel in an effort to take over the West Bank from the Palestinian Authority. Let’s look at how we got here and what that “here” is right now.

In the 1967 Six Day War, Israel captured five Arab territories, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Gaza sits on the Mediterranean Coast and had been a part of Egypt. The West Bank comprises the interior of the country and had been occupied by Jordan.

In the 1990s Israel and the Palestinians signed an agreement splitting up control over the West Bank. The Palestinian parts of the West Bank came under the government of the Palestinian Authority. It’s also known as Fatah, which is the main political party that controls the Palestinian Authority through its president, Mahmoud Abbas. So, Palestinian Authority-slash-Fatah controls Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

Gaza, however, is controlled by Hamas, an Islamic terrorist group. In 2005 Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip: uprooted all the Israeli settlements there, pulled out the army, and left completely. Gaza is no longer occupied. In 2007 Hamas, the Islamic terrorist group, won an election and took over the territory, ruling ever since as a cruel tyrannical regime that uses Gaza as a platform to attack Israel. Since then Israel and Egypt have imposed a severe blockade on Gaza, tightly controlling everything that goes in and out in an effort to prevent Hamas from acquiring weapons and materials to wage war.

Even though Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank are both Palestinian, they hate each other. In 2007 they fought a brief but bloody civil war for control of Gaza, which Fatah — the Palestinian Authority — lost. Since then they have mostly been in their separate corners. Since 2007 Hamas has been busy running Gaza and fighting Israel. The fear was always lurking that Hamas would someday also take over the West Bank, and Israel would be faced with this terrorist group on two sides. At least in Gaza there is a strict separation between Palestinians and Israelis, since the territory is no longer occupied. But in the West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli areas sit right on top of each other, sometimes only a few hundred yards apart. It’s the nightmare scenario.

Well all of Israel is awake now as the realization sets in that the nightmare may now be arriving.

Violence in the West Bank

It’s a common joke that the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is in his 18th year of a 4 year-term. Now 87, he took office in 2005 and never held an election since. He is corrupt, ailing, authoritarian, but supported by Israel and the international community. The devil you know is better than the devil you know is worse, which would be Hamas. Given all this, the Palestinian Authority is weak and getting weaker, struggling to maintain its hold over the Palestinian population that is frustrated by Israel’s never-ending Occupation, its own government’s authoritarianism and incompetency, poor economic prospects, and an uncertain future. What happens when the ailing President Abbas dies? No one knows.

In the last year or so, Hamas has smelled an opportunity to establish itself in the West Bank and eventually take over the territory from Fatah. It does this through violence against Israel.

The authors Jonathan Schanzer and Joe Truzman at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a think tank, trace what they call the “turning point” to May, 2021. Israel and Hamas fought a short war in and around the Gaza Strip, after which, “Hamas made a strategic decision . . . to abandon battles in Gaza because it is territory the terrorist group already controls. Rather, it elected to export unrest and chaos to the West Bank . . . with the goal of taking it over.” The authors write that initiating violence there accomplishes two of Hamas’ goals: threatening Israel and destabilizing its Palestinian Authority rival.

Beginning in March 2022, Israel began to be hit by terrorist attacks from a variety of actors. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Brigades, as well as self-proclaimed supporters of ISIS. Many of these groups are funded by Iran. Car ramming attacks, stabbings, shootings, explosives. Downtown Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Beersheva, Bnei Barak, West Bank settlements — it was happening all over the country. One after another. Further enraging Israelis were the celebrations that often accompanied each attack, as Palestinians handed out sweets, held parades, and lit off fireworks in honor of the “martyrs” — the terrorists who were themselves killed during their attacks.

In response, Israel launched a counterterrorist operation called Operation Wave Breaker. It quickly became clear that many of these attacks, and preparations for others, were coming primarily from two cities in the West Bank: Nablus and Jenin. And this is noteworthy because both of those cities are under the control of the Palestinian Authority. This is not joint territory between Israel and the Palestinians, and there are no Israeli settlements or Israeli army presence in those cities. Because of this these areas have been relatively calm for many years. But as the Palestinian Authority’s control has weakened, terrorist groups have been able to set up shop, effectively taking over these cities from the Palestinian government and planning and launching attacks with impunity.

A kind of supergroup of terrorist all-stars has formed in Nablus and Jenin, calling itself the Lion’s Den. It seems they have pulled fighters from the main groups: Hamas and Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Brigades. Often these groups compete with one another but in this instance they seem to be cooperating, all with funding and support from Iran.

And so Israel’s Operation Wave Breaker was an attempt to take back the territory for security purposes. Israeli forces raided the Lion’s Den’s lairs, which often resulted in firefights in which Palestinian fighters were killed. A few civilians were also unfortunately caught in the crossfire. The three original founders of Lion’s Den, Palestinians in their 20s, were killed, and others have also since been arrested. But as the authors of the report from the Defense of Democracy note, “It was too little and too late. The West Bank had become home to established terrorist organizations that previously lacked a foothold in the territory.”

In other words, the Israeli army was forced to step in. Israel’s raids in Jenin and Nablus has of course inflamed Palestinian anger against Israel, providing a welcome excuse for the Lion’s Den violence. You see, it’s all the fault of the Israeli Occupation! But Israel didn’t have a choice. Israel can’t allow terrorist organizations to fester, to act with impunity. These terrorists aren’t just targeting Israeli settlers, they are attacking inside Israel proper. The Palestinian Authority doesn’t have the ability to provide security, so what choice is there? So now we have this entrenched situation. And since the beginning of this year, things seem to only be getting worse.

Israeli settlers destroy Huwara

The tension and violence has ratcheted up since the start of this year. On January 27, a Palestinian terrorist killed seven Jews outside a synagogue after Shabbat prayers in Jerusalem. On February 10, a terrorist rammed his car into a bus stop in Jerusalem, killing a 20 year old and two brothers, ages 6 to 8. Their father was sedated in a coma and, as of this episode, I don’t even think he’s been told what happened. And then, two days ago, on February 26, two more brothers, ages 19 and 21 from a small Israeli settlements near Nablus, were stuck in a traffic jam when a terrorist opened fire, killing them.

What happened next takes things to a whole new, terrifying level. The terrorist who killed the two brothers on February 26 came from the Palestinian village Huwara. In response, hundreds of Israeli settlers descended on Huwara, burning it to the ground and killing one Palestinian civilian. The Israeli army did show up, but with too few soldiers. The Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur writes of, “surreal scenes of IDF captains and majors rushing to rescue elderly Palestinian women from homes set ablaze by an Israeli mob.” Which, if you ask me, is exactly what the Israeli army should be doing.

Commentators are describing it as a pogrom — which I don’t really like, because that term is particular to the Jewish experience. It describes the rampaging murder and destruction of Jewish villages in Europe in the last few centuries. On the other hand, if the shoe fits….

This wasn’t the first time settlers have attacked Palestinians. Often it is done as an indiscriminate response for terrorism — what are called “price tag” reprisals. That is, the “price” Palestinians pay for engaging in terrorism, whether or not, the Palestinians being attacked had anything to do with it, which they usually don’t. It’s also part of a strategy to make life miserable for the Palestinians so that they’ll leave, or so these settlers can justify seizing their land. It’s a small cohort of settlers who engage in this, they’ve always been on the fringe. But what the destruction of Huwara reveals is that we’ve entered a new phase.

For the first time Israel’s government includes ministers openly in support of these settler terrorists. As the journalist Yair Rosenberg writes, until November’s elections, these people were “fringe lawbreakers. Now they are lawmakers.” Zvika Fogel, who chairs the Knesset’s National Security Committee, was quoted in the Times of Israel saying, “Yesterday, a terrorist came from Huwara. A closed, burnt Huwara — that’s what I want to see. That’s the only way to achieve deterrence. After a murder like yesterday’s, we need burning villages when the IDF doesn’t act.”

In response, numerous Israeli politicians have called for Fogel to be referred for criminal charges for inciting violence. Israel’s President, Chaim Herzog, said, “This is not our way. It is criminal violence against innocents. It harms the State of Israel, it harms us, it harms settlers. It harms security forces who are busy searching for those responsible for the terror attack, and most of all it harms us as a moral society and a lawful country.” The American Orthodox Union declared that what happened in Huwara must never happen again. Even Prime Minister Netanyahu, who made this bed and is now stuck sleeping in it, insisted that only the Israeli military and security forces can avenge this attack, and called on Israelis not to take matters into their own hands. The monster Netanyahu unleashed has, I think, now torn off its chains.

So if the Palestinian terrorists have been emboldened this past year, now, too, have the Jewish terrorists. That’s because they finally have fellow travelers in high-ranking government positions. Men like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have long supported, encouraged, and provoked these settler extremists. Ben-Gvir is in charge of the Israeli national police, including in the West Bank. Smotrich has just this week been put in charge of Israel’s settlement policy. Just before the attack on Huwara, a settler tweeted a call to “erase the village of Huwara today.” Smotrich liked it. Ben-Gvir has been a no-show, only emerging after the attack to weakly suggest that the settlers not take the law into their own hands. Had he given any orders to the Israeli police, and what were they? We don’t know. We do know that the settlers who were arrested after the attack have all been released.

As the journalist Rettig Gur writes, “It was a remarkable moment of clarity for the two ministers who’d spent much of the past two months demanding oversight and responsibility for security and law enforcement in the West Bank. When it came time to exercise that power, the sum total of their activity appeared to be the production of a single tweet while a Palestinian town was set ablaze.”

There’s a reason for that. These two ministers, and others, encourage this kind of violence as provocation. They are not timid about their long-term goal: that the entirety of the West Bank will be annexed into Israel, and the Palestinians forced out. They’ve never had this kind of power before. And even before this week there was already a powder keg brewing, in a tiny illegal Jewish settlement called Eviatar.

Beita vs. Eviatar: harbinger of the future?

Amidst the chaos of the last few days there was a less-noticed item that is a very big deal. Israeli forces forcibly evacuated Jewish settlers from a small outpost called Eviatar, located near Nablus and the Palestinian village Beita and about a mile and a half from Huwara, the town destroyed by settlers two days ago. The first attempt by settlers to build there was in 2013, and there were several attempts. But every effort was stymied by the Israeli army, which destroyed the makeshift buildings and forced out the settlers.

But in May, 2021, the last time Netanyahu was Prime Minister, the settlers tried again and this time the government didn’t immediately send in the army. That created an opening for Palestinian protestors, who began angrily demonstrating against the settlements. One thing led to another, the Israeli army went in, a firefight ensued, people were killed, and the conflict became locked in. When Netanyahu’s government was replaced by a broader coalition that included Arab parties, Eviatar was dismantled by the army once again, but with a compromise: the government promised that at some unspecified later time the settlers could return. That government had no serious intention of keeping that promise but then that government fell and Netanyahu’s latest government came in, promising to support the Eviatar settlers by legalizing their illegal settlement. And so, at the same time as one group of settlers was torching Huwara two days ago, another group re-occupied Eviatar, also in response to the previous day’s murder of the two brothers. The army again yesterday evacuated the group, but now some are returning to try again.

The journalist Yair Rosenberg wrote about Eviatar a couple weeks ago as a harbinger of things to come, a model for both the Israeli settlers and their Palestinian opponents. Rosenberg wrote that for the settlers, establishing Eviatar as a legal settlement would cut in half the area around the Palestinian city of Nablus, thus, he writes, “foreclosing the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state.” In other words, if this can work in Eviatar, it can work in other places in the West Bank, gobbling up more and more land until there is nothing left for the Palestinians to form a state. As for them, writes Rosenberg, this situation is “a chance to turn Beita into a beacon of defiance for the rest of the West Bank.” Both these sides agree that any era of cooperation is over, that armed conflict is instead the path for each to get what they want. Now add to that combustion a resurgent Hamas looking for a fight and a severely weakened Palestinian Authority that can’t provide security, and there is no telling how far out of control the violence could get.

All of this, by the way, speaks to the utter paradox of Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank. Israel cannot begin to solve these problems while occupying the Palestinians. But Israel can’t stop occupying until the violence is solved. Refusing to leave the West Bank provides endless fuel for Palestinian violence and international condemnation. But to leave the West Bank would mean turning it over to the murderous nihilism of Hamas, an impossibility to consider.

The word on everyone’s minds — even before this week — is intifada. This is the name for mass Palestinian uprisings against Israel. There’s been two, the first in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the other from rough 2000 to 2005. The first one was bad enough but the second intifada — uprising — nearly broke Israel. Hundreds of Israelis were slaughtered in horrific terrorist attacks, from bus bombings to nightclubs to Jewish holiday gatherings, to random murders. That Second Intifada killed off any Israeli expectation for peace with the Palestinians, and even a desire to coexist with them, leading to the rise of the right-wing and the kinds of harsh Israeli reprisals we’ve seen in recent years. A third intifada would be disastrous in its own right, but between Hamas’ foothold in the West Bank and the extreme nationalists in the Israeli government who are pushing confrontation, everyone is terrified that region might really actually explode.

So here we are. In the past day, Palestinians have responded to the Huwara attack by killing an Israeli-American in the West Bank who was driving to a wedding. Israel’s army is conducting a massive surge in the West Bank. And the settler terrorists have also turned on the Israeli army, attacking soldiers with stones and, incredibly in at least one incident, by trying to run over a soldier with their car. Finally, Ben Gvir found it in himself to urge the settlers not to take the law into their own hands — but these are his people, so who are we kidding. Events are happening so quickly that I was revising this episode as I wrote it yesterday, hitting refresh on the news pages every few minutes. By the time you listen to it, I’m sure, there will be yet more drama.

The good news

Is there any good news? There actually is and I wish I had more time to get into it. One of Netanyahu’s most extreme ministers, the homophobic Jewish ultranationalist Avi Maoz, who was the Deputy Minister of Education, voluntarily resigned from his post after so many protests from Israeli educators that, he said, he couldn’t carry out the policy deals he had made with the coalition government. A GoFundMe in Israel for Huwara has raised over half a million dollars and rising, as Israelis from all walks of life condemn the attack as being abhorrent to their values and to the state they want Israel to be. A poll conducted yesterday showed that if the elections were held this week, Netanyahu and his coalition would lose — though let’s not read too much into that, as of this moment they are fully entrenched and not in danger of collapse. And finally, in the United Nations World Happiness index, Israel came in at #9 — the ninth happiest country in the world. Which is actually worth drilling down into because of what it says about Israeli culture — but not today.

I sat down to write like a 10 minute current events update, but here we are. Thanks for listening everyone, appreciate your emailed comments which, so far, have been devoid of nastiness, so thank you. As always I’m at jewoughtaknow.com and my email is jewoughtaknowpodcast@gmail.com. Talk to you next time, l’hit’ra’ot — see you later.