opinion
It’s Time to Turn the Palestinian
Mindset Against Terrorism
BY DAN SCHUEFTAN
P alestinian terrorism, both among Israeli Arabs
and from the West Bank Palestinians, derives
to a large extent from the erosion of deterrence
since the Second Intifada. A new generation of
Palestinians has arisen that did not experience
for themselves what happens when the Jews
understand the gravity of the danger that faces
them and decide to use force in order to break the
will of Palestinian society to dispatch and support
murderers. The terrorist who tried to enter the community
of Tekoa and carry out an attack — just like the
murders in Beersheba, Hadera, Bnei Brak, and
Tel Aviv; the rioters in Lod and Acre; the thugs
on the roads of the Negev; and the hooligans
at Kibbutz Kfar Masaryk are young people who
didn’t experience Operation Defensive Shield,
which extinguished the Second Intifada, and the
forceful repression of the violent rampage by Arab
Israelis at the time.

A section of Arab society is not familiar with
the concept whereby cultured people “live and
let live.” What they are familiar with is that if
they cease to fear the state and the majority,
they derive a sick satisfaction from the ability to
impose fear and terror.

These factors can be repressed and deterred
only through forceful means. “Searing of con-
sciousness,” as former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe
Ya’aon put it at the time of the Second Intifada,
was a concept that at the time was received
with typical hypocritical criticism by the talking
heads in the studios and the press. But thanks
to that searing of consciousness, for close to two
decades any major outbreak of violence in the ter-
ritories was prevented and there was coordination
with the Palestinian security apparatuses.

Israel’s firm response to the October 2000
mass riots by Arab citizens in support of the war
of terror launched against the state prevented
wider and more organized violence. In addition to
Correction the hunt for and elimination of the terrorists them-
selves, what is now required is an escalation and
wider operations to hit the environment that sup-
ports terrorism. The elimination of Hamas leaders
Yahya Sinwar and Salah Arouri and their gangs is
desirable at the appropriate operational oppor-
tunity, but targeted killings do not in themselves
ensure strategic gains.

The change must be perceptual: Hamas in Gaza
cannot be renumerated with protection money
while it instigates terrorism from the West Bank,
Lebanon and the Israeli Arab community. The
A new generation of
Palestinians has arisen
that did not experience
for themselves what
happens when the
Jews understand the
gravity of the danger
that faces them.

town of Jenin cannot receive economic bene-
fits — entry permits for Israeli Arabs — when it
dispatches terrorists from its midst and operates
as an extraterritorial jurisdiction run by terrorists.

The main thing is to prevent anarchy from leaking
into Israel.

A message must be sent that will resonate
among young Arabs in Israel and cut short a
trend that is gathering pace in front of our very
eyes. Alongside the barbarity of the pogroms
in Acre and Lod, which have received patriotic
legitimization from the Arab leadership in Israel,
Arab youngsters have now begun to impose fear
on Jews for their perverse pleasure and to attack
representatives of the state, its infrastructure, its
The May 5 food column “Beef Stroganoff Revisited” inadvertently called for the use of top sirloin
in its preparation. While sirloin in Israel usually is considered kosher because of more-stringent
butchering methods, that is not typically the case in the United States. The recipe should instead
be prepared with ribeye steak or, more economically, with flank or skirt steak. The Exponent
regrets the error.

18 MAY 12, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
institutions and its symbols. They do this while
they document their rampages, because they feel
immune from the law. They behave in this way
because on social networks a large part of the
Arab community sees them as heroes and their
deeds as emotional compensation for their sense
of inferiority.

If the Israeli law enforcement system fails to
punish and humiliate these hooligans, and if it
does not show the Arab community the grave and
ongoing damage that will be caused to them for
many years, the state of Israel will find itself facing
an internal threat of dimensions that will require
it to employ far more serious means against far
greater numbers.

Video posted by the hooligans themselves
shows how they broke into Kibbutz Kfar Masaryk,
directed their gutter language at its residents,
and showed open contempt for an armed security
guard. The videos document, for example, how
they provoked the police by driving wildly in front
of a patrol vehicle, rode their horses into a café
and other such provocations. They dare to behave
in so barbaric a manner because they are aware
of the pitiful state of Israeli law enforcement, from
the police through to the state prosecutor’s office
and the judges themselves.

The police take pride in large operations, but
they have abandoned public spaces. At the same
time, the state prosecutor’s office violates its role
by its agreement to inexplicable plea bargains
and judges hand out ridiculously light sentences.

It begins with the kind of violent rampages on
Israel’s roads that left the town of Arad isolated
and continues with pogroms in mixed towns, and
if it is not put down in a harsh manner, it will end
with the loss of security for Jews in their lands and
attempts to block IDF forces on their way to the
front at times of war. JE
Dan Schueftan is the director of the International
Graduate Program in National Security Studies at
the University of Haifa’s National Security Studies
Center. This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

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