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Intelligent opinions since 1945.
Today’s terror attack near Hebron, in which two Israelis were killed but the presence of a checkpoint prevented mass slaughter, is a reminder of how much coordination, training, resource allocation, manpower, and proactive security it requires to prevent the mass murder of Jews on any given day.
That’s the conflict in a nutshell. It’s why the Israeli security architecture is in place. And it’s why terrorists and pro-Palestinian activists share the same goal: to weaken, and ultimately dismantle, that security architecture.
According to authorities, this morning, at a checkpoint near the ancient Jewish city of Hebron, two Palestinian terrorists opened fire, killing two Israelis and wounding three others before being shot by soldiers. The firefight reportedly lasted about 20 minutes; IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said that, upon a search, “a large quantity of ammunition was found in the vehicle in which the terrorists arrived at the scene of the attack, which was intended to be used to carry out a larger-scale attack.”
IDF troops launched a post-attack raid in the Hebron area and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered tightened security in Judea and Samaria.
The attack was clearly intended to cause mass casualties. The key line in the Times of Israel report: “After conducting a preliminary probe, the Israel Defense Forces said it believed the gunmen were planning to carry out a larger attack against Israeli civilians on Route 35, but realized they would not be able to reach the highway and decided to open fire at the temporary checkpoint instead.”
They still killed Israelis, but they were prevented from killing many more by the checkpoint. Thank God for checkpoints—temporary and permanent ones alike. They exist because they have a purpose, and the second they become unnecessary the calls for their dismantling will have legitimacy, but not a moment before. The necessity of the checkpoints is a Palestinian decision.
A word should be said here about temporary checkpoints, too. It would be easy to map an attack route for maximum casualties if nothing ever changed. This goes for occasional crackdowns, road closures, raids, and other security tactics as well. They are necessary. Without them, many more innocents would die.
“Why does Israel need…” is a question that gets asked a lot by people pretending to be naïve. Israel’s needs are determined by its enemies. Its qualitative military advantage is not optional; it’s what prevents the entire region from going up in flames. Its surveillance capabilities represent technological adaptations the state has been forced to make to prevent the sands from running red with blood.
Likewise, if there ever emerges a Palestinian state, it will be because Israel made it possible. For decades prior to Israeli statehood, “Palestinian” was a word more associated with Jews than Arabs; the latter were part of a southern Syrian hoped-for kingdom. When Gaza and Judea and Samaria were occupied by Egypt and Jordan, respectively, there was no consideration whatsoever of an independent Palestinian Arab state on that land.
Israel’s victory in 1967 opened the door to Palestinian statehood. Its presence in Judea and Samaria, beyond the imaginary “green line,” is the reason Mahmoud Abbas is still alive and the Palestinian Authority exists. Otherwise the area would be an Iranian colony (until Israel dislodged the Iranians, which it would have to do).
No one forced the Palestinians to reject a hundred years’ worth of peace deals. No one is forcing them now to reject self-government. And no one is forcing them to follow a national strategy of murdering civilians. But so long as they are, Israel must defend innocent life.
The shooting today was also a form of research. Palestinian terrorists stress-test Israel’s security architecture. They do this because, again, their strategy is to kill the maximum number of innocent civilians possible.
The foreign activists in Judea and Samaria this week, among them the likely future congressman Brad Lander, were doing their part to undermine everyone’s security solely because there are a few tracts of land, on which Palestinians reside, that require coordination with the IDF ahead of olive-picking. They make a mockery of the sanctity of human life, unlike the brave soldiers who prevented mass bloodshed today.