The West Bank is 'a ticking time bomb,' former Israeli army chief told Haaretz, as the Palestinian Authority loses his grip. Will Israel be forced to reevaluate its Hamas policy? ■ Warnings pile up over porous Israel-Jordan border
Like the Iranians, Hamas too has good reasons to be pleased with its situation over the past year. The IDF’s Operation Shield and Arrow in the Gaza Strip last month was the second Israeli strike against Islamic Jihad in less than a year.
In both cases, Israel did not exact a price from Hamas, even though behind the scenes the organization provided limited aid to Islamic Jihad’s rockets. With Israel’s concurrence, large quantities of goods from Egypt enter the Gaza Strip every day via the Rafah crossing. Egyptian supervision is not hermetic, and it’s likely that some of the items have a dual usage – they can be used also for building up Hamas’ military force.
Immediately after the cease-fire came into effect, the entry into Israel of 17,000 Gazan workers a day resumed. Gaza is hoping that the Netanyahu government, right-wing in full, will soon raise the number to 20,000.
Recently an unusual request was received from Palestinian business people in Hebron: They want to hire Gazan workers, because most of the workers with the requisite skills from Hebron are now employed in Israel.
Still, the situation is far from an economic idyll. All the problematic trends in the West Bank are continuing apace: the weakness of President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s loss of control in the northern West Bank, a considerable rise in the number of shooting attacks against Israelis (this week, a resident of the settlement of Hermesh, Meir Tamari, was murdered) and a greater involvement of members of the Palestinian security apparatuses in violent clashes with the IDF.
The terrorist attack next to Hermesh shows an extension of the activity of armed local squads – like the Lion’s Den in Nablus and Sons of the Camp in Jenin – to the Tul Karm area as well. The roads are a major point of vulnerability in Israel’s defensive alignment in the West Bank.
In Nablus an effort is underway by the Palestinians to develop more lethal explosive devices. The last time the IDF guarded the entry of worshippers into Joseph’s Tomb in the city, roadside devices, so far not very effective, were used against the Israeli forces.
According to some evaluations, a local effort is also underway to develop rockets and mortars in the West Bank. Some of the activity draws on the smuggling of arms and explosive devices from Jordan, as was uncovered with the arrest of a Jordanian MP at the Allenby Bridge crossing in April.
Hamas is deeply involved in all this activity and is encouraging it, seeking to achieve a dual goal: to strike at Israel and to undermine the status of the PA. If the 87-year-old Abbas resigns, or dies in the near future, those efforts will be stepped up, as Hamas will think it will be able to take control of independent enclaves throughout the West Bank.
Will these developments give rise to a reexamination by Israel of its policy toward Hamas? Speculation has lately appeared in the Palestinian media that Israel will demand that Hamas extend the cease-fire from Gaza to the West Bank and refrain from terrorist attacks there. MK and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot tells Haaretz that the West Bank is a “ticking bomb. The Abbas era is drawing to a close and support for Hamas is growing, as was also seen recently in its victories in the elections for the student unions in the universities in the West Bank.”
In Eisenkot’s view, “Current Israeli policy, which is deliberately weakening the PA and allowing Hamas to grow, is political and strategic folly, which reflects how the government is being dragged in the wake of the views of Bezalel Smotrich.” Eisenkot is appalled at the public campaign that settlers are waging against the head of Central Command, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, following administrative detention (incarceration without trial) orders that were issued against far-right activists in the West Bank.
“They should salute him a few times a day. The effort that the Shin Bet and the IDF, under Fuchs’ leadership, are making in the territories is the main barrier to the spread of terrorism. But in the long term it might not be enough,” Eisenkot says.
Smotrich’s political clout was demonstrated this week in the case of the transfer of a yeshiva from the abandoned settlement of Homesh, when the finance minister (and minister in the Defense Ministry) succeeded in forcing an illegal action on Gallant and the IDF: the establishment of structures on state lands without regularizing the status of the new site. The amazement expressed in the IDF and in some of the media attests to naivete at best. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Bolstering the settlements, with all the required efforts, is precisely the objective for which Smotrich joined the government.
By comparison, his work in the Finance Ministry takes secondary priority. But it does enable him to press the IDF to cooperate with him, if the General Staff wishes to get the allocations it needs to implement its plans.
Last week, in a hearing on a petition to the High Court of Justice calling for the perpetuation of the chief of staff’s additions to the pensions of officers who retire from the career army, the state told the court that agreement had been reached on furthering legislation in the matter. This happened after years in which the treasury heaped obstacles in the path of the IDF’s attempts to legitimize the increments. It’s likely that these agreements are dependent on the IDF displaying goodwill on issues close to the minister’s heart, most of which lie in the territories.
Low-priority border
Arms smuggling from Jordan into the West Bank doesn’t take place only via the official bridges and crossings. It’s also intertwined with drug smuggling and the entry of infiltrators. These events occur all along the border, which has low priority for the IDF and is sparsely guarded. Last week, a police ambush seized 35 kilograms of heroin in the possession of three Bedouin citizens from the Negev, close to the border north of Beit She’an.
Last month, the head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, Idan Greenbaum, fired off a sharply worded letter to the prime minister, in which he warned of a clear and present danger along the border with Jordan.
In contrast to the Egyptian border, which was blocked with an effective fence whose construction Netanyahu initiated more than a decade ago, on the Jordan border, Greenbaum wrote, “There is no significant obstacle, and in some cases no obstacle at all. The IDF, based on its commanders’ operational considerations, is hardly present on the ground, and the response time to events is very long. In practice, those who guard the eastern border every day of the year are soldiers of the Jordanian army, with all that this entails.”
Greenbaum added, “In recent months, we have been witnessing a large flood of infiltrators in our area. It’s known that just last week groups of eight to 10 people crossed the border and disappeared into Israel without anyone knowing where they were headed. In other cases, Border Police volunteers arrested infiltrators after they wandered about in the country uninterrupted for an entire night. Along with this, we know of the large-scale smuggling of means of combat along the border. There’s no need for prophets of doom and fearmongers to understand that the combination of the crossing of combat material and people at the same places is liable to end in a major disaster. No one can guarantee us that one of those who cross the border will not take up arms and use them in one of our communities, which are [only] a few hundred meters from the border.”
According to Greenbaum, “The writing is on the wall, and in glaring letters. All our appeals to the various security branches have not brought about any change in the situation. The situation on the ground is becoming more serious by the week. We have no desire to return to the black days of the 1970s.”
Almost two weeks after he sent the letter, the council head received a reply from the director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, Yossi Sheli: “The phenomenon you refer to with concern is indeed grave and calls for a response. Your letter has been transferred for handling to the National Security Council.”
Who knows? Maybe after Netanyahu succeeds in bringing down the cost of living, as he promised, he really will deal with the situation on the border with Jordan too.