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Breaking the Terror Wave
(Times of Israel) Brig.-Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser interviewed by Amanda Borschel-Dan - Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, a former head of the research division of IDF Military Intelligence who specializes in the security dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, says, "I'm totally against this idea of lone wolves," to describe the current flare-up of Palestinian armed violence. "These are not lone wolves. These are wolves that were bred by the incitement....Once you prepare them mentally to be a wolf, eventually they are going to carry out a terror attack." "What brought the Second Intifada to an end was the understanding of the Palestinian leadership that they have to do something about it, because they are paying a heavy price. Not only the terrorists among them, but the entire society also was paying a price. Palestinian interests were paying a price. And that's not the case today." "The Palestinian Authority is either totally uninvolved in what's happening and just watching from afar, or encouraging the terror attacks by paying salaries to the terrorists and joining in with their incitement....One of the reasons why they don't do anything to stop it is that the vast majority of the Palestinian population doesn't feel that they pay any price for what's going on." "Much of the economic flourishing of the Palestinian economy is based on the presence of Israeli Arabs that come to have commercial activity in [Palestinian] cities....We should suspend it for a while. And this by itself is also going to send a message to the Palestinians that there is a price for this terror wave." "The Americans...are very proud that they give more and more money to the Palestinian Authority, even though they cannot give it directly. So they give it indirectly. They found all kinds of ways to bypass the Taylor Force Act that prevents them from giving money to the Palestinian Authority. So they give it to all kinds of organizations that the Palestinian Authority is supposed to support. And by that, they ease the economic pressure on the Palestinian Authority and allow it to keep paying salaries to terrorists. This is totally ridiculous." "Iran is motivated by a missionary ideology. They want to turn everybody into a Shiite Muslim....If we allow a group of messianic people like that to have nuclear weapons, this is going to be extremely dangerous, and everybody should be aware of that and should take the necessary steps in order to prevent that from happening. I'm happy that the Americans are saying that we should not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. But I look at what they're doing and I say to myself that there's some sort of contradiction here between what they're saying and what they're doing, and this keeps me awake at night."