Terrorism Can Be Defeated, But Israel Can’t Cede Crucial Territory

When Hamas began carrying out suicide bombings in the 1990s, Israeli security forces confronted what was then a relatively new tactic. The Shin Bet soon focused its attention on Yahya Ayyash, Hamas’s chief bomb maker, who had been involved in planning most of the attacks. Avi Dichter, then head of the Shin Bet’s southern division, directed the operation that culminated in Ayyash’s assassination; it involved locating the terrorist in Gaza’s refugee camps, infiltrating his inner circle, and then placing a miniature bomb into his cell phone. Reporting on a recent interview with Dichter, now a member of the Knesset, Yaakov Katz writes:

Almost 21 years later, Ayyash’s assassination continues to reverberate throughout Israel and the Gaza Strip. Not just because it was one of the first examples of how Israel was adapting to the new threat of suicide bombers, but because the skills honed then by the IDF and the Shin Bet continue to serve the country today in its never-ending war on terrorism. . . .

Dichter is of the opinion that terrorism can be defeated. When he was head of the Shin Bet, he famously said that “terrorism is like a barrel that has a bottom,” meaning that it has an end. While terrorism has dissipated in the years since, it has not completely disappeared. Nevertheless, Dichter remains confident that he was right.

But for that to happen, Israel—or any other country, for that matter—can never let up its fight. It is a constant battle that never ends. . . . A constant hunt for terrorists, he explained, forces the wanted men and women to reorganize their lives: “That is what we did during operation Defensive Shield, [which ended the second intifada in 2002]. Until then, terrorists were using 95 percent of their time to engage in terrorism and 5 percent to hide. The operation made it the opposite.” . . .

[Furthermore], according to Dichter, Israel can’t gamble with its security by withdrawing, for example, from strategic places like the Jordan Valley or the Golan Heights. “The debate about the Jordan Valley is over,” he said. “We need to understand that what happened over the last six years—an Arab earthquake that no one foresaw—means that we can’t take risks that will undermine our ability to be prepared for surprises and scenarios looming on the horizon.”

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Hamas, Israel & Zionism, Second Intifada, Shin Bet, Terrorism

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF