The decision made during Shabbat to reinforce forces in Yosh and Jerusalem was necessary: the Palestinian arena is on the verge of an explosion. A combination of intelligent use of force, restraint and diplomatic moves, and of course - also luck, is now required to stop the escalation.
This challenge is now laid before the Netanyahu government.
A month after it was established, it faces a more complex and explosive security challenge than before.
The immediate concern is a wave of isolated attacks, who will seek to imitate the success of the terrorists who carried out the attacks in Jerusalem on the weekend, and to which is added the constant threat of attacks carried out by terrorist organizations.
Increased alertness.
Forces in the city of David, photo: Photo: Yonatan Zindel/Flash90
Together with the brainwashing on social networks (which certainly affected the last two terrorists) and the laxity of the Palestinian security mechanisms, especially in northern Samaria, a complicated security-political effort is now required that requires a steady hand on the steering wheel of the leadership.
Netanyahu has gone through several similar rounds in the past, and is always careful not to take drastic and hasty steps.
The top security leadership is also balanced, even though two of its three sides - Defense Minister Galant and Chief of Staff Halevi, alongside Shin Bet chief Bar - are new in their positions.
Things you see from there
Alongside them, there are currently serving in the cabinet a series of ministers with a record of extreme statements, who may now demand extensive moves to demand the restoration of security.
At the head of them, of course, is the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gabir, who found himself on Saturday night, for the first time, not on the side that blames others for laxity that cost human lives, but as someone who bears responsibility for the dire consequences and is required to stand behind his promises.
It is likely that Ben Gvir, like his new cabinet colleagues, now understands the limitations of power.
Even when deterrence is strong (and it is strong) and the intelligence is good (and it is good), there will always be buyers and terrorists who slip under the radar.
This is the constant frustration of the war on terror, where 99 percent success in thwarting terrorist attacks will never compensate for the feeling of pain and loss in not being able to stop the successful attack.
Neve Ya'akov.
More forces are needed in the field, photo: Olivier Fitosi/Flash90
Even the calls heard during the weekend to launch a large-scale operation in Yosh are disconnected from the reality on the ground.
Israel operates freely in Israel, and does not refrain from using force either. 150 deaths in 2022, and another 30 since the beginning of 2023 (including nine in the IDF operation in Jenin last Thursday), are daily evidence of the reality in which Israel is accused by The Palestinians and international actors differ in using excessive force, which leads to escalation.
In Jerusalem, where the two attacks were carried out over the weekend, the reality is even more complicated. The hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in the city hold an Israeli identity card, which gives them full freedom of movement. about the myth of the city that is connected to it together).As in Yosh, the security effort there should be intelligence-oriented, combined with flooding the area with forces - also so that terrorists will attack soldiers or policemen, and not civilians, and also so that there is an available and skilled response force in all decree.
succeeded in 2015
Such operational-intelligence effort gradually led to curbing the wave of individual attacks in 2015/16.
It was then accompanied by a political effort, which is required even now.
It can be assumed that the American Secretary of State in Lincoln, who will arrive in Israel tomorrow, will ask to make sure that Israel does not go crazy, but Israel needs to help him to thwart the suspension of security coordination that Abu Mazen announced on Thursday.
He will ask to make sure that Israel does not go crazy.
American Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, photo: AFP
The security coordination with the Palestinians is important not only in preventing friction between Israelis and Palestinians: the very security connection between the parties is a permanent restraint against escalation.
Jordan and Egypt also have a lot of weight in the effort to prevent escalation now.
Rabbi Ammon is required to act against the Palestinian Authority in Yosh, and Cairo against Hamas in Gaza.
Regional coordination
Netanyahu's meeting last week with King Abdullah, after several years of disconnection between them, was the beginning of a productive coordination that will also be critical in the explosive issue of the Temple Mount, on the eve of the coming month of Ramadan.
Egypt will be required to rein in Hamas, which, while holding back the escalation from Gaza (and also made sure on Thursday that the Islamic Jihad responded with a reduction to the killing of its people in Jenin), but is constantly working to set the West Bank on fire, including by financing and directing terrorist attacks.
Battle of Lima.
MDA forces in Neve Ya'akov Jerusalem, photo: Olbia Fitosi/Flash 90
A combination of all these efforts over time will allow Israel to curb the current wave without risking a major outbreak.
Other moves, which will be perceived as too aggressive, may not only not produce the desired result, but also lead to a scenario that the Shin Bet and Amman have been warning about in recent years, of a widespread conflict in the Palestinian arena.
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