|
In-Depth Issues:
Iran Expert Doubts Israel's Mossad Recruited Ahmadinejad ( 103FM-Jerusalem Post)
Beni Sabti, an Iran researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), said Tuesday in an interview:
"These days there are small protests in Iran. Yesterday, they used tear gas on them, something that had not happened since January. There is a lot of economic tension and frustration, including surprise power outages for almost the entire day. In my opinion, the Iranians will not sit at home for long."
Sabti said Iran is aware that Israel is waiting for an attack and it is avoiding direct fire at Israel for now.
Addressing a report that former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in contact with Israel's Mossad, Sabti said, "In my opinion, that is nonsense."
"There is a difference between a meeting to establish contact and feel things out, and a person enlisting for you. It is possible there were attempts to lure him to Budapest, to show him respect, and to establish contact. But from there to turning him into an agent, I have a problem with that."
"What about his bodyguards? Do you think someone sends Ahmadinejad alone? Aren't there 10 ideologues of the regime around him? It is a little naive to think that way. If he were a Zionist agent, he would not be wandering around Iran now."
See also Ahmadinejad Denies Report on Israeli Plot to Elevate Him - Lynsey Chutel ( New York Times)
A statement on the social media page of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president, denied on Tuesday that he was at the center of a secret Israeli operation to groom him as an intelligence asset.
His office denied "Hollywood-style claims" designed to undermine his popularity that were an example of "psychological warfare."
A No-Nonsense, Strategic Approach to Iran - Meir Ben Shabbat ( JNS)
In light of the Iranian regime's radical Islamist ideology and worldview, deterrence cannot be relied upon. Only prevention and denial of capabilities can provide real security.
As long as Iran remains under its present revolutionary leadership, it cannot be safely permitted to retain or rebuild strategic capabilities: nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, advanced drones and their production facilities, and proxy armies.
Whether in Tehran, Gaza, Lebanon or Yemen, the enemy must be confronted according to the way it actually thinks, not the way others would like it to think.
The writer, head of the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, headed Israel's National Security Council (2017-2021).
Israel Has Been Hunting Down All Those Who Invaded on Oct. 7 ( JNS)
Israeli security forces have eliminated 2,561 terrorists from Gaza who took part in the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel's Channel 12 reported Friday.
This includes a thousand who were killed in the first week of the invasion.
A special unit tasked with hunting down the perpetrators was given the operational responsibility to kill all those who took part in the massacre, following a decision by the Israeli government.
See also Israel Stepping Up Campaign to Kill Every Oct. 7 Terrorist - Emanuel Fabian ( Times of Israel)
The IDF has in the past few months stepped up a large-scale campaign to hunt down and eliminate every terrorist who took part in the Oct. 7 massacre.
Israel has created a list of all the Gazans who invaded Israeli territory on Oct. 7, using video and photographic evidence posted online by terrorists and running the footage through facial recognition software.
Also on the list are all Hamas leaders involved in orchestrating the massacre.
300 perpetrators have been captured by Israel and await judgment by special military tribunals.
What to Know About Pickaxe Mountain - David Albright ( Institute for Science and International Security)
On July 13, President Trump made it clear that Iran's nuclear-related Pickaxe mountain facility is on the U.S. target list.
The tunnel facility under construction has not been previously targeted. Our assessment of satellite imagery is that the facility is not yet operational, but construction continues.
Construction started in 2020, when Iran announced that the underground halls were intended to replace the destroyed above-ground advanced centrifuge assembly facility at the main Natanz site.
The space available under the mountain could be expected to be large enough to hold a centrifuge enrichment plant capable of producing weapon-grade uranium.
It is likely large enough to also hold certain nuclear weaponization activities such as making weapon-grade uranium metal and shaping it into nuclear weapon components.
Germany Moves to Block EU Trade Embargo on Israeli Communities in Judea and Samaria - Assaf Uni ( Globes)
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Monday that any vote on a boycott or toughening of trade terms with Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria by the EU requires unanimous agreement from all 27 member states, which significantly reduces the chances of the measure being adopted.
If any measures are solely in the field of trade, then a qualified majority is sufficient (at least 15 countries representing more than 65% of the population in the entire EU).
If the measure is considered a foreign policy measure, a unanimous majority is required.
This means that Germany has once again come out in support of Israel.
Erdogan's Turkey Must Not Get the F-35 - Dan Perry ( The Hill)
President Trump now wants to sell Turkey's President Erdogan F-35 stealth fighters, even though it would irreparably harm American security.
Ankara was expelled from F-35 eligibility in 2019 after it chose to purchase Russia's S-400 air defense system.
This was done for a good reason: A partnership with Russian air defense systems weakens the F-35's ability to evade Russian radar - which was critical to the ability of the U.S. (and Israel) to control the skies over Iran in the recent war.
Trump must not sell Turkey these planes. The fear that Moscow could gain insight into NATO's most advanced aircraft will probably create congressional hurdles to the administration's plans to make such a sale.
Moreover, Turkey's posture toward Israel has become steadily more extreme.
The F-35 is a flying intelligence platform - a symbol of trust and a core component of American and allied air superiority. Countries receive it because Washington believes they will safeguard its technology and not pass it on to Russia.
Turkey broke that trust when it bought the S-400 despite American warnings.
The writer is the former London-based Europe-Africa editor and Cairo-based Middle East editor for the Associated Press.
The Intifada at MIT - Barton Swaim ( Wall Street Journal)
Yossi Sheffi, a professor of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for 48 years, has produced a report on campus-based antisemitism after Oct. 7 - Unsafe at MIT.
The report reminds us that the anti-Israel campus protests didn't arise in response to the war in Gaza but to Hamas terrorists' murdering, maiming, raping and abducting thousands of Israeli civilians.
The agitators didn't demand a return to Israel's borders in 1967 or a "two-state solution" but the Jewish state's eradication.
Sheffi interviewed scores of Jewish and Israeli students who said many of their peers, professors and advisers turned into adversaries.
He relates stories of students blocked from campus thoroughfares, targeted by name as "Zionists" in online forums, and taunted and screamed at. Meanwhile, the administration caved in to the demands of the protesters.
If any other minority had been treated as Jews and Israelis were on America's campuses two years ago, we would have seen National Guardsmen patrolling their quads.
Again and again in Sheffi's narrative, Jewish and Israeli students, many of them politically liberal, recalled their mistake in assuming they could reason with their keffiyeh-sporting peers.
One student recounts: "A lot of people looked like they were in a trance. It almost looked like a cult."
Sheffi's book describes a great American institution avidly betraying its principles.
Search the Recent History of Israel and the Middle East
Send the Daily Alert to a Friend If you are viewing the email version of the Daily Alert and want to share it with friends, please click Forward in your email program and enter their address.
|
|
News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Central Tehran Billboard Depicts Trump in a Coffin
Those who passed the gigantic corner billboard in Enghelab Square in central Tehran on Wednesday saw the figure of President Trump, his body peeking out from an open black coffin. White graffiti splattered across the coffin includes the words "We Will Kill Trump" in both Persian and English. (New York Times)
See also For Iran, Revenge on President Trump Is an Ideological Imperative - Dr. Yossi Mansharof
Calls in Iran to take revenge on U.S. President Donald Trump are sometimes viewed in the West as tired rhetoric.
For Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as Iran's supreme leader, however, carrying out that revenge is an ideological, religious and operational priority of the highest order.
Unit 840 of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force already has a branch responsible for directing terrorist activity on U.S. soil, headed by Mohsen Bozorgi. Tehran relies on three main groups to carry out terrorist attacks and assassinations abroad, including in the U.S.: Iranian or Lebanese expatriates with local citizenship, Muslim operatives with an ideological affinity for the regime and, increasingly, the cynical use of local criminal organizations and underworld figures.
A clandestine infrastructure has been built and cultivated in the U.S. in cooperation with Hizbullah since the second half of the 2000s. In practice, persistent and determined FBI counterterrorism operations appear to have prevented Iran and Hizbullah from developing these networks into significant capabilities capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks.
The writer is a senior researcher at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy. (Israel Hayom)
- U.S. House Defeats Bid to End Military Aid to Israel in 314-104 Vote - Emily Brooks
An amendment to cut off U.S. aid to Israel was defeated in the House of Representatives on Wednesday in a 314-104 vote. 103 Democrats voted in favor of the amendment, 98 Democrats voted against, and 10 Democrats voted present. (The Hill)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- IDF Destroys Hizbullah Stronghold in Southern Lebanon - Yair Kraus
Bint Jbeil, a southern Lebanese town, has long been regarded as one of Hizbullah's most important strongholds.
Israeli officers say 40% of the town has already been demolished, a figure expected to reach 70% in the coming weeks. The targeted structures all contained Hizbullah military infrastructure. Shortly before Israeli forces entered the town, Hizbullah's current leader, Naim Qassem, declared, "If Bint Jbeil falls, Hizbullah will fall."
Lt.-Col. S., a reserve deputy commander in the IDF's 401st Armored Brigade, says, "You have to look south to understand why we are doing it," where Israeli troops can see the Israeli communities of Avivim, Yiron, Bar'am, Rehaniya, Safed and even Haifa Bay. "You see the communities below you and understand the reason. You understand there is no choice."
For two decades, Israel's working assumption was that although Hizbullah had developed the ability to invade the Galilee, it did not necessarily intend to do so. The campaign in the north is now being conducted without relying on assessments of Hizbullah's intentions, commanders said.
"I do not care whether Hizbullah wants to attack us today. I want to know whether it can, and I want us to make sure it cannot," S. said. "We are here to deny capabilities. They will not be able to conquer our communities. We cannot control their desire, but we can reduce their ability." (Ynet News)
See also IDF Is Racing to Eliminate Hizbullah Infrastructure in Southern Lebanon - Yonah Jeremy Bob
The IDF is racing to finish eliminating Hizbullah terror infrastructure in 52 southern Lebanese villages in the coming weeks before the U.S. presses Israel for a wider withdrawal, IDF sources said on Wednesday.
(Jerusalem Post)
See also 3 Hizbullah Terrorists Eliminated Wednesday in Southern Lebanon Security Zone - Elisha Ben Kimon (Ynet News)
- Israel Now Controls 67-70 Percent of Gaza - Amichai Stein
Senior Israeli military officials told the Security Cabinet on Tuesday that the IDF now controls between 67% and 70% of Gaza. After Hamas refused to disarm as required under President Trump's peace plan, and amid the continuing threat it posed, the IDF expanded its operations in recent months to capture more territory.
(Jerusalem Post)
See also Two Hamas Nukhba Terrorists Eliminated Wednesday in Gaza (Ynet News)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran
- The U.S. Should Stop Chasing the Iranians for Talks - David Ignatius
Iran's economy is severely weakened; its nuclear facilities are buried under rubble and its top nuclear scientists are dead; its leadership appears divided over whether to do a deal with the U.S. Hard-liners exult that they have survived an onslaught from America and Israel.
Should the Trump administration return to negotiations over the nuclear program? Maybe, but what's the rush? Trump was right when he said after the June 2025 war that Iran's key facilities had been "obliterated." There's no pathway to a bomb now. If Iran tries to restart its program, the U.S. and Israel will likely know it and can take appropriate action.
I'm usually an enthusiast for diplomacy, but for now, we should stop chasing the Iranians - through the front channel, back channel or anything in between. Let's wait and see. The Iranian government is obviously split.
A genuine peace with Iran "will come in two weeks, or two months, or two years," as one U.S. negotiator puts it. Trying to rush that timetable hasn't worked. But I think the Iranian regime is still on a one-way street to an eventual demise, however long that takes.
(Washington Post)
- What Options Does the U.S. Have Left in Iran? - Maj. (ret.) John Spencer
The war against Iran that began on Feb. 28 was never designed as a regime-change campaign. Had the U.S. intended to overthrow the Islamic Republic, it would have applied vastly different forces and pursued Tehran's political collapse from the opening hours.
The endgame remains regime behavior change. Iran's remaining leaders must decide that preserving the Islamic Republic requires abandoning the programs and actions that brought the country into war. They must accept that continuing their current behavior will place their military power, governing institutions, personal security, and ultimately the survival of the regime in greater danger.
The U.S. wants Iran to accept conditions it has resisted for decades because American military power has made further resistance unbearable. Negotiations produce little when one side believes time, delay, and continued resistance will improve its position.
In the next phase, military action, economic pressure, diplomacy, intelligence, cyber operations, information operations, and support to internal resistance should reinforce one another until the regime concludes that continued resistance threatens its survival. Every day of resistance should leave the regime weaker and less confident.
The senior political and military leadership should not enjoy sanctuary while Iranian forces attack American personnel and attempt to control the Strait of Hormuz. Those directing the war should be hunted, isolated, and prevented from exercising effective command. Iran must understand that the war has not come close to exhausting American power. Tehran cannot assume that surviving the first campaign guarantees the survival of its remaining military capabilities.
The writer is chair of urban warfare studies at West Point's Modern War Institute.
(Substack)
- You Can't Negotiate with Iran - Jason M. Brodsky
With the reimposition of the American naval blockade against Iran, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Washington and Tehran seems dead. Its demise reveals what the Islamic Republic has always been: an aggressive, terroristic power that has no interest in rejoining the community of nations.
The Trump administration demonstrated with the MoU that it was willing to go big on sanctions relief for Iran. But this outstretched American hand was met once again with an Iranian clenched fist. Since 1979, the U.S. government under multiple administrations have engaged the Islamic Republic in the hopes of improving relations. But to no avail. Iran has tried to reset the rules of the region by asserting unilateral sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, responding aggressively to U.S. enforcement of freedom of navigation, and striking Israel over its attempts to neutralize Hizbullah.
Conventional wisdom has framed the collapse of the MoU as due to drafting mistakes and bad negotiating, but that is a misreading. The agreement collapsed because of the nature of the Iranian regime as an international pariah, a regional bully, and a domestic dragnet that is not seeking peace. The regime in Iran does not view diplomacy as a means of solving problems with the U.S. but rather as an extension of its conflict with America.
President Trump has had a consistent strategy all along: one of coercive diplomacy. The President lays out his demands, gives Iran an off-ramp, sometimes sets a deadline, tests their willingness to engage, and if they don't in good faith, he strikes. The defunct MoU is just another chapter of that same coercive diplomatic dance. It will continue until U.S. objectives are met.
The writer is policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). (Spectator-UK)
- Why We Must Sanction Everyone Who Spreads Iran's Malignant Tentacles into the Heart of Britain - David Patrikarakos
Iran's Islamic government is not just a bloodthirsty regime 3,000 miles away on a different continent that we can afford to ignore, but a clear and present danger to our way of life.
This week, an Iranian newspaper published a "revenge list" of world leaders to be targeted for the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, including President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with sniper-style targets on their foreheads. 11 other leaders, all depicted in orange prison uniforms, were featured below them, including UK PM Sir Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, France's President Emmanuel Macron, and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni.
In August 2024, I reported on the web of Islamic Republic-linked institutions in London that I christened "Little Tehran." With extremist speakers promoting Islamism and children taught to sing songs praising Iran's supreme leaders, it is no exaggeration to say that the next generation of the regime's thugs is being incubated right here in our capital city.
The truth is that the mullahs of Tehran are not leaders of a nation state in the traditional sense but members of an Islamist vanguard engaged in what they believe to be a perpetual war against the West. Proscription alone is not enough. The West needs a plan to cripple the IRGC and, to achieve that aim, we need to go after the vast business empire that pays for its guns and missiles and funds its proxies. (Daily Mail-UK)
U.S.-Israel Relations
- The Ro Khanna Stunt: Using Israel for Political Theater - Dr. Dan Diker
U.S. Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) recently spent 72 hours touring Palestinian Authority-controlled villages without coordinating the visit with Israel. He characterized his visit as a trip to "Palestine" and his itinerary was arranged by a radical anti-government Israeli advocacy group. He traveled with activists tied to an American organization that has lobbied against the Israeli government since 2008, as well as New York Times reporters.
Khanna's unmarked convoy, carrying unidentified passengers in an area that had only recently been redesignated from its former status as a closed military zone, drew the attention of Jewish residents of nearby communities who alerted the Israel Police and the IDF, who delayed the convoy until they received clearance orders.
Video footage uploaded online shows that Khanna was not harassed. In fact, it is more likely that Israeli locals were unaware of Khanna's presence or his identity, as the Congressman, almost unknown in Israel, sat in a van behind darkened windows. Once his identity was established, the convoy was allowed to proceed.
Khanna then publicly declared on X that Israeli settlers carrying American-made M4 rifles had "detained him" and that the IDF "sided with the settlers."
Israel has faced this situation before: political actors who use Israel and the Palestinians as props in their own political theater to advance their domestic political agendas. Khanna, an admitted presidential hopeful, has called for halting all weapons transfers to Israel, including missile defense funding. He has positioned himself as the candidate willing to break furthest from his party's traditional support for the Jewish state.
The writer is President of the Jerusalem Center.
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
Syria
- Trump Sees Israel's Presence in Southern Syria as a Problem, Israel Sees It as a Solution - Herb Keinon
When Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa swept into power in December 2024, Israel quickly implemented policies born of the lessons learned from Oct. 7. The first was to act before threats metastasize rather than after. The second was never again to let those who want to murder you encamp right on the border. As a result, the IDF carved out a buffer zone inside southern Syria designed to keep forces hostile to Israel from establishing themselves within easy striking distance of Israeli communities on the Golan Heights.
President Trump reportedly urged Prime Minister Netanyahu last week to begin withdrawing from southern Syria, Axios reported. He sees Israel's presence in Syria as a problem. Israel sees it as a solution.
Before Oct. 7, Israel's security doctrine rested heavily on deterrence, intelligence, sophisticated border barriers, and rapid military response. Oct. 7 shattered confidence in all of these.
The result has been a fundamental shift in Israel's security doctrine which increasingly seeks physical depth between hostile forces and Israeli civilians. The reasoning is simple: enemies cannot launch another Oct. 7 and swarm into people's homes if they are prevented from massing on the border. That thinking now shapes Israeli policy in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
The question is not simply whether Sharaa seeks peace today. It is whether he will still be able or willing to prevent hostile forces from operating near Israel's border five years from now. Another factor reinforcing Israeli caution is Turkey, Sharaa's principal external backer, which is increasingly seen as a potential long-term threat. From Israel's perspective, replacing an Iranian sphere of influence immediately on its border with a Turkish one would hardly constitute progress.
None of this means Israel intends to remain in southern Syria indefinitely. But Jerusalem is in no great hurry to withdraw. It wants sustained proof that Syria has fundamentally changed before dismantling one of the principal security measures put in place after Oct. 7. (Jerusalem Post)
Antisemitism
- France Commemorates Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, Exonerated Victim of Institutional Antisemitism - Michael Levitt
On July 12, the 120th anniversary of France's highest court recognizing the innocence of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army captain wrongly convicted of treason in 1894, France inaugurated an annual national day of commemoration of this shameful miscarriage of justice.
The Dreyfus Affair is one of history's most enduring examples of institutional antisemitism.
In announcing the national day to honor Dreyfus, French President Emmanuel Macron decried that the "ancient specter" of antisemitism persists to this day. Indeed, the French Interior Ministry reported 1,320 hate crimes targeting Jews in France in 2025.
The writer is president and CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC). (Toronto Star-Canada)
- Will France Recognize the Injustices Against Jews and Israel? - Amb. Freddy Eytan
It was in Paris, during the ignoble trial against Captain Alfred Dreyfus, that Theodor Herzl realized the urgency of the Zionist movement and published The Jewish State. The history of the Jews is part of the national history of France.
Jews inhabited France several centuries before the Franks and the Normans, dating back to the 1st century. Since then, they have integrated and contributed in all areas to the development of the country, always faithful to republican laws, devoted to their homeland.
By definitively rehabilitating Brig.-Gen. Alfred Dreyfus, restoring to him his dignity as a soldier and officer, the French Republic and army have finally regained their honor. As a Francophile Israeli, I wish to see again the France of the Enlightenment, of human rights and universal values, the France of Victor Hugo, Chateaubriand, Zola, Mendes France, Cassin, Blum and Bloch, and a long list of sincere and loyal friends of Israel.
The writer, a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, is a former Foreign Ministry senior adviser who was Israel's first ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.
(Israel Hayom)
- The Unfathomable Darkness of the Church of England - Melanie Phillips
The Church of England has decided to engage with a document that demonizes the State of Israel with vicious falsehoods and distortions, tries to to rob Jewish people of their historic identity, and seeks to destroy Judaism itself as the religion rooted in the Land of Israel. The document's very title perpetrates the wicked lie that Israel is the perpetrator of genocide rather than the target and victim of genocidal attacks perpetrated by the people that this document, and the Church of England, go out of their way to sanitize, excuse and justify.
The document describes the Palestinian Arabs falsely as the "indigenous people of this land" (it's the Jews who are the actual indigenous people of the land). It demands a boycott of dialogue with "Zionists" - which in practice means boycotting as pariahs the majority of Jews.
Every lie that's been thrown at Israel over its war of self-defense in Gaza - starvation, ethnic cleansing, war crimes - is thrown at it here. It portrays opposition to Israel's existence and "resistance" - the killing of Jews - as an act of religious faith.
All the Palestinian Arabs need do to transform their lives for the better is give up the violence against Israeli Jews that they perpetrate every single day in order to further their century-old aim of destroying the Jewish homeland. The only reason for checkpoints is to pre-empt even more murderous Palestinian Arab violence against Israeli citizens.
For decades the church has been promulgating incendiary calumnies against Israel with a theological underpinning that casts the Jews as the party of the devil. Its importance in helping create today's insane levels of Jew-hatred should not be underestimated.
The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK. (Substack)
Weekend Features
- We Are the Luckiest Jews Who Have Ever Lived - Ben Freeman
For three years we have watched Jew-hatred erupt on campus, online, inside political movements, and among people we once called friends. Institutions we helped build, funded, and sat on the boards of have turned away from us and showed us exactly what they were made of. But we should recognize that these betrayals provide us with information.
Something in these institutions changed over the last decade: Principle was traded for donor comfort, standards for slogans, scrutiny for the easier feeling of being on the right side of a hashtag. Thank God they threw us overboard. It may have been the only way for us to have avoided going down with them.
For years, many of us worked to earn a permanent berth - a faculty appointment, a board seat, a spot at the table - on the theory that enough usefulness would eventually purchase real belonging. Losing our place on board returned us to a vessel we already owned, one we had spent 2,000 years building in exile and then, against every reasonable expectation, actually finished building in our own land.
No earlier generation of Jews had a country of their own to run to. We are the first generation who already have somewhere of our own to go. That is the shape of our fortune: not that no one throws Jews overboard anymore. That when they do, there is a shore now, and there wasn't one then.
Most Jews alive today have never known a world without Israel, never known a world in which Jewish self-determination existed only in prayers, songs, and distant hope. Jew-hatred has shaped our history, but it does not define our civilization. The Jewish story is a record of what we built, preserved, and carried forward in spite of what others have done to us.
The writer is the author of Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People, Reclaiming Our Story, and The Jews: An Indigenous People. (Tablet)
Observations:
- In breach of the Oslo Accords, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) is now host to an armed force ten times larger than the number of terrorists who invaded from Gaza on Oct. 7. The Palestinian Authority (PA) security apparatuses are a trained military body that holds tens of thousands of assault weapons. Many of its members have already participated in terrorism against Israelis (12% of Palestinian security prisoners originate from its ranks), and it trains exclusively for one scenario: war against the State of Israel.
- Unlike the Gaza envelope, the areas adjacent to Judea and Samaria contain Israel's largest population centers. The distance from the PA town of Qalqilya in Samaria to the Mediterranean Sea is only 14 km. (9 miles). Millions of Israeli citizens in the Tel Aviv region live under direct threat.
- Hundreds of PA security personnel participated in the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Since then, the PA security forces in Judea and Samaria have grown by 400%, transforming from a small policing force into an army.
There is no meaningful difference between the PA and Hamas. Both embrace terrorism and both seek to destroy the State of Israel.
- Under the Oslo Accords, the PA was supposed to have a body responsible for maintaining local public order, to combat crime and terrorist organizations. For this purpose, they were allowed a limited quantity of weapons. Originally, they were limited to 12,000 personnel in Judea and Samaria equipped with 4,000 rifles, 4,000 pistols, 120 light and heavy machine guns, and 15 armored vehicles. They now number 70,000 soldiers.
- Palestinian society does not suffer from unusually high crime levels that would justify such a large armed force. If Israel does not act to significantly reduce these forces to the agreed-upon dimensions, millions of Israeli citizens will remain under threat of a massacre that may dwarf the horrors of Oct. 7.
- Given the severity of the threat, the Israeli government must adopt a strategy of "dismantling and demilitarization." Halt all approvals for the transfer of weapons, ammunition, or armored vehicles to the PA. Demand the immediate return of any armament exceeding Oslo limits (such as heavy machine guns, RPGs, and explosive devices). Condition all aid to the PA on reducing the size of the security apparatuses to the original agreed level of 12,000.
- Close all facilities and training bases whose purpose is to provide "military training." Prepare the IDF operationally to protect Israelis living near the seam line with Judea and Samaria. Cease foreign training of PA security personnel abroad, including in Pakistan.
The writer, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, is director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center.
|