Israel's Jenin Operation

Israel is currently conducting its largest military operation in the West Bank in years, launching air strikes and sending hundreds of ground troops to the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Israel claims it has targeted a joint operations center created by Palestinian militant groups and weapons production and storage areas. In addition to the death of at least eight Palestinians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East warns of water and food shortages in the refugee camp.

The Israeli operation is an escalation in a brutal back-and-forth with different terrorist groups that has been ongoing for the past three years. Last year was one of the deadliest since the Second Intifada, which ended in 2005, with Israeli forces killing 151 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as conducting operations in Gaza, where over 50 Palestinians were killed. Palestinian terrorists also killed 31 Israelis last year, its own recent high mark, and launched numerous fire bombings and Molotov cocktail attacks. This was all a substantial increase from 2021.

Much of the violence in 2022 centered around the West Bank city and nearby refugee camp of Jenin, as well as nearby Nablus. Jenin was a center of Palestinian resistance to Israel during the Second Intifada, and the Jenin Brigades resistance group emerged in 2021. Although the group receives some support from established groups like Palestine Islamic Jihad, members have come from a variety of organizations, and some have no militant group background at all. It often coordinates online and is otherwise more diffuse than Hamas, Fatah, and other organizations Israel has confronted in the past.  

Israel probably hopes its current operations will lead to the death of some militants and the arrests of others, leading to a decline in their overall capacity. This is in keeping with past Israeli operations, where the arrests of leaders and skilled group members such as bomb-makers has kept groups on the run and prevented them from conducting sophisticated operations. This has reduced, but not ended, the terrorism threat to Israel. Any Israeli successes in the latest operation are likely to be short term at best. Palestinian anger is deep, and the attack on Jenin and the deaths of Palestinians there will make it worse. 

Palestinians look at the current right-wing Israeli government and conclude there is no hope for peace. The Israeli government includes Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister for national security, who in 2008 was convicted of inciting racism and supporting a Jewish terrorist organization. He has authority over the police. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was previously an extremist settler leader and has partial control over Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the military entity that runs the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and liaises with the Palestinian Authority on a day-to-day basis. Smotrich is an open proponent of the annexation of large parts of the West Bank. 

With such leaders in power in Israel, it is almost impossible for any Palestinian politician to counsel that a return to negotiations or other peaceful alternative will lead to success. Most Palestinians now believe a two-state solution is not possible and favor the formation of armed groups to fight Israel.

Settler violence against Palestinians is rampant, and it often grows in response to Palestinian violence, creating a dangerous circle. When settlers attack Palestinians, they are rarely punished, in sharp contrast to the tough Israeli response to Palestinian violence. This lack of parity from the Israeli government discredits any Israel conciliation efforts and makes the Palestinian government look ineffective.

Palestinians are also frustrated with their own leadership beyond its inability to stop settler violence. The 87-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority who has long opposed violence, is seen as out of touch and lacks legitimacy. It is unclear who will take Abbas’s place when he leaves power. In 2021, for the umpteenth time, Abbas canceled legislative elections, fearing humiliation at the polls. Corruption is rampant: another blow to credibility.

For years, Israel has relied heavily on the Palestinian Authority to arrest suspected terrorists in the West Bank, and the Palestinian Authority is often brutal in doing so. Palestinian leaders do this not as a favor to Israel, but because they fear the threat that Hamas and other groups pose to their hold on power. The Palestinian Authority, however, is growing less capable of imposing order, hence Israel’s decision to go into the Jenin camp. Yet Israel’s military operations worsen the problem of Palestinian legitimacy, demonstrating that the Palestinian Authority cannot protect Palestinians from Israeli attacks or even impose order by itself on the West Bank. Palestinians also resent Abbas’s cooperation with Israel, seeing the leadership as accomplices to the occupation. This steadily erodes their credibility and the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority and increases the appeal of militants.

There are some bright spots for Israel, at least for now. Hamas seeks to avoid a confrontation with Israel, though it may feel compelled to launch some response to the Jenin operation given its magnitude and the likely high death toll. Internationally, Arab governments (though not the Arab people) have wearied of the Palestinian struggle and prefer to focus on Iran and other issues, often in cooperation with Israel. They are likely to condemn the operation, but they are likely to move on quickly. And perhaps most important, Israel’s military and security services are highly skilled, able to disrupt many attacks despite high levels of Palestinian anger.

Because the political situation is so desperate, many Palestinians perceive that the only hope of ending the occupation is through violence. As a result, although military operations can keep violent groups weak and off-balance, they offer little hope of solving more enduring problems. Israel has shown that it can survive, even flourish, in the face of limited violence: The gamble of the Jenin incursion is that the disruptions to the militant organizations will offset the long-term reaction the operation causes.