Car-rammings, shootings, stabbings and bombings targeting innocent men, women and children are a constant fear for Israelis. This morning, seven people were wounded in a ramming attack in Tel Aviv. Only a fortnight ago, four Israelis were gunned down by Hamas murderers. Last year, there were 5,000 such attacks. In 2023, more than 28 Israelis have so far been killed.
How would we in Britain react to such events? The IRA years show all too clearly that, in the wake of a terror threat, the security forces fight back. Israel is adopting a similar approach – but is being roundly, and unfairly, condemned for doing so.
On Monday night, Israeli forces began a major incursion into the West Bank city of Jenin, which has long been a hotbed of terror and source of Israeli death. This was an operation on a scale not seen since the Intifadas. Beginning with airstrikes at 1 a.m. targeting a militant command-and-control centre, it was followed by an infantry incursion.
Footage showed special forces padding silently in under cover of darkness. With daybreak, armoured bulldozers cleared a path, which had been mined with improvised explosive devices. Then came the cavalry. Mobile phone videos showed Palestinian youths in sports gear and head-dresses firing wildly with automatic weapons.
In 2023, more than 28 Israelis have so far been killed
The incursion continues, but the results are starting to come in. Multiple arrests, a bomb laboratory and rocket launcher parts seized. Nine dead with at least 50 wounded, 10 critically.
The underlying problem is that the hopeless Palestinian Authority is no longer able to police Jenin, which has turned into a gangster-run enclave. It reminds me of the slums of Caracas, in Venezuela, where I have worked as a foreign reporter: the police are fearful of entering, so it is literally a case of mob rule. The place is awash with guns. Only in Caracas there aren’t terror cells intent on massacring innocents.
Given that the terrorists who target Israeli civilians are of a piece with those who target British soldiers and civilians, you’d have thought that commentators in this country would understand the need for such measures. After all, both Hamas, which kills Israelis, and Al Qaeda, which brought down the World Trade Center, are offshoots of the same ideological source, the Muslim Brotherhood. But due to a phenomenon that I have started to call ‘Israelophobia’ – I have a book by that name coming out in September – the attitude in Britain has been quite the opposite.
The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4 last night showcased soft-soap interviews with Palestinians alongside an evisceration of a Likud politician, with the presenter repeatedly seeking to lay the blame for the cycle of violence at Israel’s door. The Today Programme this morning included a noticeable paucity of Israeli voices, likewise focusing its coverage heavily on the Palestinian narrative. Even-handed sections — there were one or two —were islanded amid waves of nudge-nudge insinuations about the evil Israeli army.
Much hay was made of Israel’s rightwing government, which includes a number of deeply unpleasant hardliners. It is true, of course, that the political situation is bleak, with young men in Jenin having little aspiration or hope for the future. But none of this excuses antisemitic terrorism, which long preceded the establishment of the Jewish state.
Given the density of civilians in Jenin, it will be impossible for Israeli troops to avoid innocent casualties, however hard they try. Following its modus operandi, the Israeli Army has issued multiple warnings to Palestinian residents, advising them to evacuate areas that are earmarked for attack. But casualties are, tragically, inevitable. And when they occur, they will be weaponised as propaganda by some Palestinians and their cheerleaders in the media. Look at those bloodthirsty Israelis, the narrative will run. Things haven’t changed since medieval times, when they used the blood of Christian children in their matzos.
Like I say: Israelophobia. The newest form of antisemitism. It slumbers when the news is dry, but as soon as the Jewish state takes action to stop people killing its civilians, the old prejudice dominates our airwaves. All Israel can do is continue to keep its people safe, even if that means using its armed forces in a way that armchair critics, whose children are safe in their beds, find unpalatable.
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