In the past two weeks, a rash of terrorist attacks on Jews in Israel has left several seriously injured. The Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, has called upon his people to take to the streets, and has threatened to end security cooperation with Israel. Much like the wave of stabbings, car-rammings, and other low-grade attacks in 2015 and 2016, this outbreak of violence has led to speculation in the Israeli press that another intifada could be in the making. Moshe Elad argues that such a development is as unlikely as it was four years ago:

During every crisis in recent years—the eruption over the metal detectors at the entrance to Temple Mount, the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, [and so forth]— Mahmoud Abbas has issued a call to “take to the streets.” And every time it bounced back like an echo in an empty chamber. The Palestinians in the West Bank don’t flood the streets anymore. They have lost all energy and are disdainful toward the corrupt leadership of the Palestinian Authority.

Whenever Abbas is displeased at some international decision or other, he takes to his balcony and declares an end to security cooperation with Israel. But since the mechanism was [created] in 1995, it has ceased its activities only once, following the riots over the Western Wall tunnels in September 1996, and only then at Israel’s initiative. Hundreds of threats later, the cooperation is business as usual.

Abbas and his people know very well that the Israeli army is present in the West Bank mainly to protect the roads and the settlements within it, but as a byproduct, it also protects the Palestinian Authority. Every Palestinian security officer knows that without the IDF, Abbas would have been forced to escape underground, just as his men did when Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.