Has the Individual Intifada Peaked?: Ben Caspit, Al-Monitor, Apr. 4, 2016— Israel has been torn in half for the past 10 days over the soldier who took the law into his own hands and shot and killed a wounded Palestinian March 24 in Hebron after the latter had already been neutralized.
Why the Palestinians Are Calling to Overthrow Abbas: Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, Apr. 6, 2016— Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is reaping what he has sown. He is facing a firestorm calling for his resignation or overthrow.
The Gaza Time Bomb: Yaakov Lappin, IPT, Mar. 30, 2016— On the surface, the Gaza Strip looks relatively calm, with few security incidents occurring since the end of the protracted 2014 summer conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Hamas Commander, Accused of Theft and Gay Sex, Is Killed by His Own: Diaa Hadid & Majd Al Waheidi, New York Times, Mar. 1, 2016— The death of Mahmoud Ishtiwi had all the trappings of a telenovela: sex, torture and embezzlement in Gaza’s most venerated and secretive institution, the armed wing of Hamas.
Israel’s Five Policy Options Regarding Judea and Samaria: Prof. Hillel Frisch, BESA, Mar. 29, 2016
What Palestinians Think about the Knife Intifada: Daniel Polisar, Mosaic, Mar. 31, 2016
Inside Hamas, a Bitter and Very Personal Battle for Control: Avi Issacharoff, Times of Israel, Mar. 19, 2016
The Historic Betrayal of the Palestinians: Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute, Apr. 5, 2016
HAS THE INDIVIDUAL INTIFADA PEAKED?
Ben Caspit
Al-Monitor, Apr. 4, 2016
Israel has been torn in half for the past 10 days over the soldier who took the law into his own hands and shot and killed a wounded Palestinian March 24 in Hebron after the latter had already been neutralized. The country is divided into two warring factions furiously arguing. The vast majority of the public, along with a group of agitated right-wing politicians, have been verbally attacking Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot and the entire IDF senior command. The military establishment has determined that the soldier’s actions were in breach of IDF values and has opened a criminal investigation against him.
Amid this chaos, one encouraging development has almost been overlooked: The wave of Palestinian "individual attacks" that began in October 2015 is receding. According to Shin Bet data, the numbers speak for themselves: there were 609 attacks in October, 322 in November, 239 in December, 166 in January, 153 in February and about 115 in March. The attacks in March were less than a fifth of those in October. This is not a widespread uprising of large swathes of the Palestinian public but a local “eruption” of Palestinian Generation Y, an upheaval that has long since peaked.
Nevertheless, the IDF and Shin Bet are far from resting on their laurels. “The situation is dangerous,” said Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon behind closed doors, according to senior security official who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “A flare-up can take place at any given moment, although we are succeeding in containing events and finding a way to lower the level of violence to a minimum.” To date, 32 Israelis, one foreign national, a Palestinian from Hebron and about 250 Palestinian attackers have been killed. The terror wave has involved about 100 stabbings, some 70 shooting incidents and about 20 vehicular attacks.
The peak of the wave has apparently passed. The event in Hebron involving the soldier was almost the only incident during the weekend it occurred. Incitement on social networks is also dying down, while incitement through the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) state-run media has almost disappeared. After inflaming the atmosphere in speeches last September and October, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas grasped that it was too risky to ride the tiger of terror, and as a result, changed direction. The Palestinian security apparatus is working overtime to locate potential attackers and arrest them and attempting to calm the atmosphere. They have even conducted surprise searches in schools to collect knives from pupils.
“If we give up security coordination, there will be chaos,” Abbas said in an interview with Channel 2 on March 31. Abbas added that his security forces are preventing a deterioration of the situation and for the first time condemned the terror attacks. The dramatic changes in Abbas’ position and conduct are only part of the reason for the decline in violence. Israel’s wise policy, under the leadership of Ya’alon and Eizenkot, has succeeded in keeping the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian public outside the circle of violence. The PA’s security apparatuses as well as Fatah, including its Tanzim militia, do not participate or deal in terror. Even the refugee camps, which are potential hubs of incitement, have remained outside the frame. In segmentation studies conducted by Israel, it was found that only 25 of the 250 Palestinian attackers hailed from refugee camps. Half of them were under 20 years of age, and slightly more than 10% were females.
Israeli security sources say that ultimately what is at work is protest by the young Palestinian Facebook generation. It is not fueled by unmistakably religious motives although in some instances, the fury derives in part from religious indoctrination connected to Al-Aqsa Mosque. This is the belated arrival of the spirit of the Arab Spring to the PA's domain. This spirit has mainly consumed frustrated, confused youths seeking to rebel against the establishment and the sad scenario that awaits them in life. Often, the assailants were influenced by the deaths of friends or by discussions on social media of attackers who were shot or “executed” by Israel.
“The phenomenon we are witnessing is almost ‘romantic’ in nature although of course it is difficult to use a word like that [in this context],” said a highly placed Israeli military source. “In some of the cases, these youths believed that perpetrating a terror attack in Israel with a knife would end or change their lives and bump them up to a higher [status]. It became a tool for social mobility and an expression of fury and rebellion.” Thus, Israeli policy succeeded in “dividing and conquering” the Palestinian public. Close to 200,000 Palestinian workers earn their living in Israel, and these workers feed more than a million people in the West Bank. Even during the most violent days of the individual intifada, Israeli policy, led by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, advocated a soft approach.
“We rarely imposed closures and encirclements,” said Ya’alon in his closed-door statements. “After all, that’s the best way to get the masses out into the streets. We transfer the requisite tax money to the [Palestinian] Authority. After all, it’s Palestinian money. Security cooperation is good; neither of the two sides has any other choice.” In the medium range, this policy has been quite successful. The overwhelming majority of Palestinian society stayed on the sidelines, away from violent incidents, and kept the peace.
“In recent weeks, we’ve started to solve the terrorist attacks even before they take place,” said an upper-echelon Israeli security figure speaking on condition of anonymity. “We developed methods.” He cited new algorithms developed by Israeli cyber and intelligence experts that facilitate the monitoring of social networks and locating posts that point to potential terror plans of participants. Increasing numbers of Palestinian youths, male and female, were stopped or apprehended on their way to perpetrate stabbing attacks. The numbers on the ground are harbingers of success. All this, together with a significant deployment of forces on the ground — there are about 30 IDF battalions currently in the West Bank — and police forces flooding Jerusalem show signs of beginning to curb the terror wave. The question is, of course, “What now?”
In his Channel 2 interview, Abbas claimed to be willing to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at any given moment. He said that he even tried to coordinate such a meeting to convince Netanyahu to give the order to the IDF to cease activities in Palestinian cities and give the PA an opportunity to reign in the terror by itself. Netanyahu’s side said the situation is the polar opposite — that Netanyahu is willing to meet with Abbas and enter into negotiations without preconditions at any given moment. If both are ready and willing to meet, one wonders why it isn't happening.
WHY THE PALESTINIANS ARE CALLING TO OVERTHROW ABBAS
Khaled Abu Toameh
Gatestone Institute, Apr. 6, 2016
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Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is reaping what he has sown. He is facing a firestorm calling for his resignation or overthrow. The Palestinians are not up in arms about Abbas's eleventh year of a four-year term in office. They really do not seem to care about that, especially as long as he is paying salaries.
Most Palestinians are not objecting to his dictatorial rule, or staunch refusal to bring democracy and public freedoms to the Palestinians. Nor is he under attack for failing to implement reforms in the Palestinian Authority, or to combat financial and administrative corruption. No, the trouble stems from a different corner entirely. Abbas has used the dirtiest words: Peace with Israel.
Let us put things into perspective. This is the same Abbas who over the past six months has remained silent in the face of the new "knife intifada"; the same Abbas who whips his people into a frenzy by telling them that Jews are "defiling the Aqsa Mosque with their filthy feet," and the same Abbas whose media and officials glorify Palestinians who murder Israelis.
The whole problem exploded when Abbas told Israel's Channel 2 TV station that his security forces in the West Bank have been entering schools and searching students' bags for knives. "In one school, we found 70 students with knives, and we told them that this was wrong," Abbas said. "I told them I do not want to kill someone or die; I want you to live, and for others to live too." He went on to say that he wants peace with Israel and is ready to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Abbas, of course, was speaking to the Israeli public, and not to his own people. He has always sent a conciliatory message to Israelis — leaving the truth with blood on it for his Arabic-speaking audiences.
The two faces of Mahmoud Abbas: The Palestinian Authority president speaks to Israelis about peace, while he whips his own people into a frenzy by telling them that Jews are "defiling the Aqsa Mosque with their filthy feet," and his media and officials glorify Palestinians who murder Israelis. A few days earlier, Abbas seemed to have committed another "crime" when he told Druze leaders who visited him in his office in Ramallah that his hand would continue to be extended for peace with Israel. He even went as far as declaring that that he "rejected violence and terrorism."
In yet a further "provocative" move on the part of Abbas, he received in his office a delegation representing the World Federation of Moroccan Jews. At the meeting, Abbas once again discussed his desire for peace, saying he was seeking to "end hostility and bloodshed between us." By granting an interview to an Israeli TV station, Abbas was defying instructions from his loyalists in the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. In February, the syndicate decided to boycott any Palestinian official who gives an interview to Israeli reporters or media organizations.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, which is dominated by members of Abbas's ruling Fatah faction, did not publicly condemn the interview with the Israeli TV station. They have better judgment than that. Privately, however, Palestinian journalists and political activists in Ramallah expressed outrage over their president's "collaboration" with Israeli media in defiance of the ban. The meeting with the Moroccan Jews also infuriated some Palestinians, who rushed to accuse Abbas of acting against the instructions of the "anti-normalization" movement in the Palestinian territories. This movement has long worked to foil meetings between Israelis and Palestinians; its supporters have not hesitated to use violence to stop such encounters from taking place. Even soccer matches between Israeli and Palestinian children are considered unacceptable by this extremist movement, which, ironically, also consists of Abbas loyalists.
Yet what really caused the outcry was the talk of peace. Without it, the interview and the meeting with the Moroccans might have been quietly condemned. Apparently, discussing searching schoolchildren's bags for knives was considered "over the top." Verbal attacks against Abbas are not only coming from his political enemies, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Some are coming from his own supporters in Fatah and the PLO… [To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.] |
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Yaakov Lappin IPT, Mar. 30, 2016 |
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On the surface, the Gaza Strip looks relatively calm, with few security incidents occurring since the end of the protracted 2014 summer conflict between Hamas and Israel. Behind the scenes, pressure within the Islamist-run enclave is gradually building again, just as it did prior to the 2014 war. Gaza's civilian population is hostage to Hamas's dramatically failed economic policies, and its insistence on confrontation with Israel, rather than recognition of Israel and investment in Gaza's economic future.
Ultimately, the civilian-economic pressure cooker in Gaza looks likely to explode, leading Hamas to seek new hostilities with Israel, for which it is preparing in earnest. Right now, Hamas remains deterred by Israel's firepower, and is enforcing its part of the truce. Hamas security forces patrol the Strip's borders to prevent Gazans from rioting, to stop them from trying to escape Gaza into Israel, and to stop ISIS-affiliated radicals who fire rockets at Israel.
Hamas is using the current quiet to replenish its rocket arsenal, dig its combat tunnel network, and build up sea-based attack capabilities. It is investing many resources in cooking up new ways to surprise Israel in any future clash. These efforts have not gone unnoticed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Hamas has not fired a single rocket into Israel since August 2014, but it encourages violence in the West Bank as part of a strategy to destabilize its Palestinian rival, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. Hamas in Gaza also works remotely to set up and orchestrate terrorism cells in the West Bank, while plotting way to overthrow Fatah from power. The Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence agency, has successfully foiled nearly all of these efforts thus far, saving many Israeli lives, and the PA's rule, too.
A deeper look at processes under way in Gaza reveals why the status quo seems untenable in the long run. Thirty percent (910,000) of Gaza's population of 1.85 million are aged 15 to 29, and out of these, 65 percent are unemployed. This represents one of the highest unemployment rates for young people in the world. Many are university educated and deeply frustrated. The overall unemployment rate in Gaza is 38.4 percent, and rising steadily. Eighteen thousand Gazan university students graduate every year. Most of them have nothing to do with their degrees, and return home to a life of idle unemployment. Many Gazans dream of leaving. The suicide rate is growing. Under Hamas's rule, these young people see no change on the horizon.
Out of the total population of Gaza, 1.3 million receive assistance from United Nations aid workers, without which, a humanitarian crisis would likely ensue. Those who dare complain, such as Gazan bloggers, find themselves whisked away into Hamas police custody, where they receive firm warnings to remain silent, or else. Meanwhile, the Gazan population is growing at an unsustainable rate. Since Israel pulled out all of its soldiers and civilians in 2005, 600,000 Gazans have been born. This is a generation that has never been to Israel (unlike the older Gazans), and its only experience of Israel is through air force missiles fired at Hamas targets following clashes sparked by the jihadist regime's military wing.
Many of these young people are exposed to the propaganda of Hamas's media outlets, like the Al-Aksa television station, which is a major source of incitement. Some are also exposed to the wider world through the Internet, and are aware that life can be different for them. By 2020, Gaza's population will hit 2.3 million people. It could run out of drinking water. This might prompt a civilian revolt, which could push Hamas into starting a new war with Israel to distract attention.
To try to relieve the pressure, Hamas leaders make promises that they cannot keep, such as the setting up of a sea port, and the opening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which the anti-Hamas Egyptian government opened just 18 times in 2015 for fear of allowing jihadists in Gaza to pour into the restive Sinai Strip. A Hamas delegation traveled to Egypt earlier this month to try to mend relations with the Cairo government. The effort resulted in failure, after Egyptian officials accused Hamas of failing to acknowledge its collaboration with the ISIS-affiliated Sinai Province insurgents… [To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.] |
HAMAS COMMANDER, ACCUSED OF THEFT AND GAY SEX,
Diaa Hadid & Majd Al Waheidi
New York Times, Mar. 1, 2016
The death of Mahmoud Ishtiwi had all the trappings of a telenovela: sex, torture and embezzlement in Gaza’s most venerated and secretive institution, the armed wing of Hamas. Mr. Ishtiwi, 34, was a commander from a storied family of Hamas loyalists who, during the 2014 war with Israel, was responsible for 1,000 fighters and a network of attack tunnels. Last month, his former comrades executed him with three bullets to the chest.
Adding a layer of scandal to the story, he was accused of moral turpitude, by which Hamas meant homosexuality. And there were whispers that he had carved the word “zulum” — wronged — into his body in a desperate kind of last testament. His death has become the talk of the town in the conservative quarters of Gaza, the Palestinian coastal territory, endlessly discussed in living rooms, at checkpoints and in cabs. But to astute Gaza observers, this was more substantive than a soap opera.
Mr. Ishtiwi, who is survived by two wives and three children, was not the first member of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, to be killed by his own. What was unprecedented was the way his relatives spoke out publicly about it. The family was considered Hamas royalty for having sheltered leaders wanted by Israel, including Mohammed Deif, the Qassam commander in chief lionized by Palestinians. Mr. Ishtiwi’s mother even sent Mr. Deif, who has lost an eye and limbs but has survived repeated assassination attempts by Israel, a tearful video message in which she entreated him to release her son.
Ibrahim al-Madhoun, a writer close to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, said the situation spotlighted shifts since Yehya Sinwar was elected in 2012 to represent Qassam in Hamas’s political wing, a role akin to defense minister. Mr. Sinwar’s actions, he said, showed that even senior figures were not sacrosanct. “He is harsher than other leaders — he wants his army to be pure,” Mr. Madhoun said in an interview. “Those who are in the Qassam are the most important people in Gaza. There is a need, they say, to show that these people are not untouchable.”
Qassam put out a statement on Feb. 7 announcing Mr. Ishtiwi’s execution, but its spokesman, and those of Hamas over all, have refused to comment since. A senior Hamas official, however, confirmed some facts and the broad contours of the case on the condition that he not be identified, saying he did not want to be seen as meddling in an affair considered embarrassing for the Hamas movement and tragic for the family. Human Rights Watch investigated the death; the group and an international aid worker who closely followed the case have offered details. Mr. Ishtiwi’s mother and 11 of his siblings were also interviewed for this article, alongside two Gaza-based human rights activists who followed parts of the story.
Mr. Ishtiwi was 19 when he joined Qassam, following three of his five brothers into the force. One, Ahmad, was killed in an Israeli strike in 2003. He became a commander in Zeitoun, his own gritty neighborhood in Gaza City. During the 2014 war, Israeli bombs smashed his family’s apartment building and his second wife’s house. It was five months after that deadly battle subsided, on Jan. 21, 2015, that Mr. Ishtiwi was summoned to an interrogation by Qassam military intelligence officials. Officers doing a kind of after-action investigation of the war suspected that he had diverted money allocated to his unit for weapons. “Do you have money?” he was asked, according to relatives. “How do you spend it?” He admitted that he had kept money meant for the brigades, and thus, said his sister Buthaina, 27, “began the telenovela of torture.”…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Israel’s Five Policy Options Regarding Judea and Samaria: Prof. Hillel Frisch, BESA, Mar. 29, 2016—Trying to craft a coherent Israeli policy toward a post-Abbas Palestinian Authority (PA) is like trying to build a house on quicksand. The situation is constantly buffeted by tremors and underground currents.
What Palestinians Think about the Knife Intifada: Daniel Polisar, Mosaic, Mar. 31, 2016 —Is the “knife intifada” beginning to run out of steam? Some observers say so. Yet this Friday, April 1, marks an impressive half-year since the launch of the current wave of Palestinian violence. Characterized largely by stabbings carried out by youngsters, generally acting alone or in pairs, this round of attacks has already claimed the lives of 29 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean asylum seeker, and a Palestinian bystander, and caused more than 400 injuries.
Inside Hamas, a Bitter and Very Personal Battle for Control: Avi Issacharoff, Times of Israel, Mar. 19, 2016—When Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas’s political wing, was interviewed on the France 24 television channel this week, his statements about a possible escalation in Gaza were unequivocal. “Hamas is not seeking war [with Israel]. We are eager to avoid it,” he said. He added that while Iran had supported Hamas in the past, it had reduced its assistance since Hamas came out openly against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. Currently, Mashaal said, Hamas was working to develop additional funding sources.
The Historic Betrayal of the Palestinians: Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute, Apr. 5, 2016—We Palestinians, as a new people on the stage of history, have not yet learned from the experience of those who preceded us. We always seem to be motivated by factors working against us, and let ourselves be manipulated by foreign countries who use us as proxies to further their own interests
