The Israeli newspaper Maariv described a brutal attack by Israeli settlers on the Palestinian village of Jalud, north of Ramallah, last night as a “serious incident,” saying that “first and foremost, at the outset, it is important to look reality in the eye: we are facing a terrorist incident.”
The Zionist military analyst Avi Ashkenazi wrote that “the Jalud village incident is testimony to the failure of the entire security establishment: the Israeli occupation army, the Shin Bet (internal security service), and the police. It is now clear that the sovereign authorities in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) are right-wing extremist terrorist activists.”
“Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Blot has failed to establish an effective operational triangle of the army, police, and Shin Bet in the fight against Jewish terrorism in Judea and Samaria. The truth is that this triangle is also not functioning in other cases. Just this weekend, a media dispute erupted between the Israeli army and police over excavated openings discovered near Qalqilya, along the seam line,” he said.
“Publicly, the police and the Israeli army try to project the image that relations between them are good. But in private conversations with journalists, the mud being thrown between the Israeli army and police resembles the hostility between supporters of Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Tel Aviv (two Israeli football clubs). There should be no confusion about this: within the Israeli army, the police are looked down upon, while on the other side, there is little enthusiasm for genuine cooperation with the army. Even relations between the Shin Bet and police are based more on mutual disdain and a lack of appreciation than on genuine cooperation.”
Ashkenazi described the failure of Central Command, the Judea and Samaria Division, and the Samaria Brigade as a “dramatic failure.”
“The return of Palestinian families to their homes in Jalud was a rudimentary military operation: a small force, no coordination with the police or Shin Bet, and no intelligence gathering,” Ashkenazi said. “More broadly, the Israeli army’s lax response to Jewish terrorism in Judea and Samaria—where operations should be conducted at night rather than in broad daylight—raises serious questions.”
“The result is clear: the Israeli army failed to carry out its mission. Three soldiers were wounded, most of the rioters escaped without being arrested, and the damage to Israel around the world is enormous, given the images of the massacre broadcast across Western media,” Ashkenazi concluded.