The Costly Price of Israeli Withdrawal: Lessons from the Past - by Prof. Hillel Frisch

Prominent politicians still advocate withdrawal from the West Bank. A simple analysis of pertinent basic data that appears in the Shin Bet’s terrorist summary for the year 2006 alone shows that the idea of withdrawal, which would imply the cessation of IDF activity in the area, could be misguided and dangerous.

Prof. Hillel Frisch..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 948..
14 September '18..

Twelve years after the tidal wave of terrorist violence known by the misnomer the al-Aqsa Intifada, one still hears prominent politicians, commentators, and political researchers advocate withdrawal from the West Bank.

An examination of data provided in the Israel Security Agency’s, or Shin Bet’s, terrorist summary for the year 2006 shows how misguided and dangerous the idea of withdrawal, which would imply the cessation of IDF activity in the area, could be.

To understand the following graph, one must recall that at the end of March 2002, Israel launched a large offensive against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the terrorists in the major towns in the West Bank to which it gave sanctuary. Not only did Israel physically retake all these areas temporarily, but it has engaged ever since in daily penetrations to make preventive arrests or apprehend those terrorists that succeed in perpetrating acts of violence.

The results were dramatic. Until the offensive, which was followed by another major offensive three months later, terrorism more than doubled each year since the beginning of the wave of violence in October 2000 up to and including 2001. After the offensive, the number of Israeli fatalities more than halved in each succeeding year. It is important to note that this reduction occurred before the completion of the most critical areas of the security fence and that the reduction in fatalities in the West Bank, which did not enjoy the security of the fence, was slightly greater than within the Green Line.

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Another year in which lethal terror attacks have been kept to a minimum

...As Rosh Hashanah nears, Israelis can look back at another year in which lethal terror attacks have been kept to a minimum. But as the Shin Bet keeps emphasizing, the reason is not any drop in motivation or attempts to commit them but because Israel retains security control over the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. There could be no more fervent prayer than that situation should continue.

P. David Hornik..
Frontpagemag.com..
03 September '13..

As Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) approaches on Thursday this week, the mood here in Israel has been oddly “schizoid.” On one hand, the usual rush on apples, honey, pomegranates and the like for the holiday; on the other, a rush on gas masks as Syria and Iran threaten “retaliation” against Israel for a possible U.S. strike on Syria.

This week there was more news on the grim side of the ledger. It turned out Israel’s Shin Bet (internal security service) had arrested five Hamas operatives who were planning a terror attack on a Jerusalem mall—timed for, and exploiting, the holiday season (reports here and here).

The leader of the cell was 22-year-old Hamdi Romana of Ramallah in the West Bank. He recruited two other West Bankers to make the explosives—and two East Jerusalem residents with Israeli ID cards, who worked as maintenance men in the mall, to plant the bomb.

The plan was to “cover the bomb in wrapping paper to make it look like a present, then place it in a restaurant, cafe or store while the mall was filled with shoppers….” The “explicit aim” was to “kill…the maximum number of Jews.”

The cell was also

planning other attacks, including planting a bomb in Ramallah that would target Israeli soldiers, firing homemade rockets at Israeli settlements near Ramallah, and firing at soldiers stationed at [a] checkpoint in northeast Jerusalem.

A few things are worth pointing out here:

"The Gatekeepers" and the banality of Dror Moreh

...His predecessor, Avraham Shalom, gives away the film's implied position: "Because of terrorism, we forget the issue of the Palestinian state." Why did we forget? Maybe terrorism was the goal from the onset, and the Palestinians actually never wanted a state? But Moreh is not showing statements that could put cracks in his narrative.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
17 May '13..

1. I was invited to a discussion of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum recently. To prepare, I watched the two films that represented Israel in the American Academy Awards' documentary film category -- Dror Moreh's "The Gatekeepers" and "5 Broken Cameras" by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi. Despite the harsh reviews they received, I recommend seeing them. They represent a perspective that needs to be dealt with.

I'll write about "The Gatekeepers" now and save "5 Broken Cameras" for another time. The sycophantic interviews of Dror Moreh in the American media did not bode well for his ability to decode the riddle of the heads of the Shin Bet. They do not say much that is deep in the film. Perhaps this is because Moreh could not deal with such minds or because he was interested not in psychological or intellectual depth, but rather in the political story in which the heads of the Shin Bet served as statistics to fill in the left wing's version of the failure of the Oslo Accords.

The theme of "shooting and weeping" has been well known since we came back to our country and had to defend it with our lives, together with the necessity of taking the lives of others. Now even the heads of the Shin Bet have doubts. This either-or quality is the bread and butter of drama: morality versus terrorism, combat versus conscience, control versus the desire for liberty. The film opens with former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin's motto: "There's something unnatural about taking the lives of people in a single second."

His predecessor, Avraham Shalom, gives away the film's implied position: "Because of terrorism, we forget the issue of the Palestinian state." Why did we forget? Maybe terrorism was the goal from the onset, and the Palestinians actually never wanted a state? But Moreh is not showing statements that could put cracks in his narrative.

While the film pretends to present complexity, it never fulfills its promise. It shows the world as black and white, and the historical excerpts have no profound context. The Six-Day War. A Palestinian population. Occupation. That's it. There's no discussion about our historical, religious and cultural context as a nation living in this region. Not a word about our principled claim to sovereignty over it.

Echoing Interviews That Precipitated a Tragedy - The Gatekeepers

...an Oscar-worthy documentary would have been one showing this story: “Security hawks speak up, policymakers listen up, a heart-wrenching evacuation of 8,000 Jews ensues, terrorist rockets are launched from the evacuated areas, and a nation is left bewildered as to what to do next.” But no Oscar would likely be awarded for such a film.

Rick Richman..
New York Sun..
03 February '13..

“The Gatekeepers,” the leading candidate for this year’s Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, begins with ominous music. It informs viewers that Shin Bet is the secret Israeli agency dealing with terrorism. Then three sentences flash slowly across the screen, one by one:

For the last 30 years only six men have led the organization.

They have never been interviewed.

Until now.

The film is intended, according to its website, as “the ultimate cautionary tale of what happens to people and nations alike when they try to answer violence with violence,” told by six former heads of the Shin Bet, who “for the first time ever … share their insights” about what Israel needs to do: change course, talk to anyone, and reach an agreement with the Palestinians.

But this is not the first time ex-Shin Bet leaders have been publicly interviewed. Their first interview — in 2003 — resulted in a disastrous change of course, one that haunts the “peace process” to this day. And not a word about it is mentioned in “The Gatekeepers.”

On November 13, 2003, Israel's largest-circulation newspaper published a two-hour joint interview with all four ex-Shin Bet chiefs, with a front-page banner headline reading: “Four directors of [Shin Bet] warn: Israel in grave danger.” The New York Times reported the interview the next day; so did the Washington Post, on its own front page.

In Britain, the Guardian's story was headlined “Israel on road to ruin, warn Shin Bet chiefs.” CNN, ABC, Fox and almost all the important press in the world carried extensive coverage of the interview. The ex-Shin Bet chiefs urged Israel to start dismantling settlements even before reaching a peace agreement.

At the time of the 2003 interview, Israel was insisting that before negotiating a Palestinian state, the Palestinians had to stop their terror war against Israel. The war had commenced in September 2000, after Yasser Arafat was offered a state at Camp David – and walked away. In December 2000, the Clinton Parameters were presented to both sides: they were accepted by Israel and rejected by Arafat.

A movie that could only have been made in Israel

The film uses allegedly “first time ever” interviews to push the same points that were pushed back in 2003 by the same people, which produced disastrous results. A better film would have explored why things failed then, and why they have failed since, rather than simply push the same points again as if they had not already been given a real-life test.

Rick Richman..
pjmedia.com..
25 January '13..





The Gatekeepers — currently Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary, opening February 1 in New York and Los Angeles — is a movie that could only have been made in Israel.

Six former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli agency dealing with domestic terrorism, each spent 12-15 hours in filmed conversations with Israeli filmmaker Dror Moreh, who spliced excerpts into a 97-minute film dramatized with archival footage and animated recreations. At the end, Moreh shows some of the “gatekeepers” saying Israel is winning battles but losing the war; that the use of force can never be wholly successful and eventually degrades those who use it; and that Israel is in danger of becoming “a Shin Bet state.”

It is a well-made, thought-provoking film, but the conclusions in the last two minutes are not entirely supported by the 95 minutes that precede them. In significant ways, they are in fact contradicted by at least one of the “gatekeepers” — Avi Dichter, who served under Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon from 2000 to 2005. Dichter summarizes Moreh’s apparent position: if we use force against the Palestinians, they will use force against us; and if we stop using force, they will stop using force. Dichter tells him the first part of the equation is true, but that the second is not.

In another exchange, recounted by Moreh at a recent screening, Dichter recalled receiving a 5 a.m. call with intelligence that a terrorist would bomb a bus later that morning, while Israelis were commuting; someone was found who fit the description of an alleged accomplice, but he was unwilling to talk; you have two hours, Dichter said, to find a person on his way to perpetrate a mass murder. So what do you do? At the screening, Moreh did not hazard an answer; and the non-response reflects the lack of easy answers to the issues in the film.

Haven’t heard much lately about Palestinian terrorism? It’s not for lack of trying.

P. David Hornik..
frontpagemag.com..
28 January '13..

Except for rockets from Gaza—which, meanwhile, have stopped since Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in November—you haven’t been hearing much about Palestinian terrorism. But it’s not for lack of trying.

Israel’s Shin Bet (domestic security agency) has released its figures for 2012. It says it thwarted 100 “serious” terror attacks over the year, a third of them planned kidnappings, four of them attempted suicide bombings. The Shin Bet also arrested 2,300 terror suspects in 2012, leading to 2,170 indictments.

For the first time in four decades, no Israelis were killed in terror attacks in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) in 2012. But the number of attacks there rose sharply, from 320 in 2011 to 578 in 2012. That included a steep, 68% rise in Molotov cocktail attacks, which are intended to burn victims to death.

These are big numbers—100 attempted serious attacks, over 2,000 suspects arrested, 578 attacks in one year in the West Bank. Considering that perhaps two million (the figure is disputed) Palestinians live in the West Bank, it would justify calling it a terror entity. As for Gaza, it numbers about 1.5 million Palestinians and fired 2,327 rockets into Israel during the year, finally necessitating Pillar of Defense.

From 452 suicide attacks in 2003 to 2 in 2007

Carl
Israel Matzav
03 November '10

How did Israel go from 452 suicide attacks in 2003 to two in 2007, bli ayin hara (warding off evil eyes)? Shin Bet (General Security Service) chief Yuval Diskin explains.

According to Yuval Diskin, Director, Israel Security Agency (ISA – Shin Bet), the winning formula developed by Israel’s security services is based on jointness – the ability of all services to work together, sharing operational concepts (CONOPS), with a clear definition of the combined objective for all the organizations engaged in homeland security and defense. Multidisciplinary intelligence activity, based on advanced technological and human intelligence, tailored and channeled through processing and dissemination, means to turn intelligence from raw data into an operationally valuable, real-time asset. “Operational systems must be adapted and learn to operate as efficiently as possible with such real-time intelligence assets” said Diskin.

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Seeking Asylum, Anti-Terrorist Hero May Be Deported

In a PJM exclusive, the co-author of Son of Hamas writes that Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of the founder of Hamas, is indeed a security threat ... to radical Islam.


Ron Brackin
pajamasmedia.com
27 June '10

For ten years, Yousef, the eldest son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was a spy for the Shin Bet (Israeli version of the FBI). In March, he became a bestselling author with the release of his autobiography, Son of Hamas.

By the Shin Bet’s own admission, Mosab was the most valuable agent it ever had or ever hoped to have. He exposed countless cells, operations, and plots and was a key player in filling Israeli prisons with bomb-makers and terrorists.

“So many people owe him their life and don’t even know it,” said Gonem Ben-Yitzhak, Mosab’s Shin Bet handler. “People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize.”

When Mosab left the Shin Bet several years ago, he came to the U.S. and appealed to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for political asylum. That’s when things got really screwy.

They turned him down.

And now they’re even trying to deport him. In terrorist-speak, that is a death sentence. If some Muslim zealot doesn’t cut his throat for collaborating with Israel, Mosab will be killed because he renounced Islam and became a Christian.

And why did DHS deny him asylum?

In her May pre-hearing statement, Homeland Security attorney Kerri Calcador cited a portion of a Son of Hamas manuscript draft, provided as evidence by Mosab and his attorney, in which “a member of Shin Bet shows the respondent a list of suspects implicated in a March 2001 suicide bombing and asks the respondent whether he knows the individuals. The respondent indicates that he does know five of the people on the list and states that he previously drove them to safe houses.”

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A Message to Anat Kam, from Israel's Soldiers

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
08 April '10

Anat Kam is a journalist. Her interest is in telling a story and selling copy. The more she sells, the more her editors value her.

Anat Kam is a 23-year-old Israeli woman who betrayed the position she was given during her army service. She served as the assistant to the bureau chief of OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh between 2005 and 2007. During that time, she copied or stole some 2,000 classified documents that, according to the Jerusalem Post, "contained top secret information concerning General Staff orders, personnel numbers in the Central Command, intelligence information, information on the IDF doctrine and data pertaining to central sensitive military exercises, weaponry and military platforms. The files also contained details on what the Central Command does in the event of a major escalation – how it deploys forces to the West Bank and where it stations them there. (http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=172658)

What she did with the documents is even worse. She gave them to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau, who is now hiding out in London, refusing to return other documents he is suspected of holding. This in itself is a crime - holding stolen, property...no?

What is interesting to me is the glorification of this woman, this thief who ran to the media after betraying the trust she was given. Perhaps even more interesting is how quickly her lawyers and others want to claim that accusing Anat Kam of treason is a betrayal of all Israel's media and that she is honorable...no, she is not.

(Read full post)
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Treason and Treachery by Israel's Leftists

Walla Gossip Reporter Anat Kamm
Soldier/Spy/Traitor

Jameel
The Muqata
08 April '10

Today, an Israeli court ordered that the media blackout be partially lifted on the highly secretive case we reported on the other day.

Some of the newly released details are rather sordid and reveal the mindset of some of Israel's ideological leftists -- Anat Kamm, a soldier spy who illegally stole and copied to CD highly classified documents -- over 2000 of them, while serving as a soldier in the IDF's Central Command.

After leaving the IDF, Kamm became a gossip columnist for the Walla news/gossip site and passed the documents to a leftwing, agenda-driven reporter with Haaretz, Uri Blau.

Using these stolen, classified documents, Blau wrote an article in Dec. 2008 which discussed the killing of Palestinian terrorists by the IDF. Blau alleged that the army had held discussions which revealed that the IDF ignored High Court rulings in regards to the targeted killings. Blau claimed the killings were carried out following orders issued by the IDF, even in cases in which the wanted terror suspects could have been arrested.

In September 2009, Blau, via his attorney, handed the Shin Bet 50 of the stolen documents he had received from Kamm. Yet the IDF and Shin Bet's investigation revealed that Kamm had copied and later transferred more than 2,000 documents to the Haaretz reporter -- and Blau had lied to the Shin Bet when he said the 50 files was "all he had."

(Read full post)
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Radical Son

Stephen Brown
Frontpagemag.com
26 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

He is not his father’s son.

In a stunning revelation, the son of a Hamas founder told an Israeli newspaper this week that he once served as an Israeli intelligence agent. Mosab Hassan Yousef, 32, told the Israeli daily Haaretz that he spied for more than ten years on the Iranian-backed terrorist organization that has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007.

In his role as Israeli informant, Yousef is credited with helping arrest high-ranking terrorists. Much more important, however, is that he also saved the lives of “hundreds of innocent people” with the information he provided the Israeli intelligence service, Shin Bet, about pending suicide attacks. “So many people owe their lives to him and don’t even know it,” Yousef’s unidentified Shin Bet handler told Haaretz.

Yousef’s Israeli handler went on to relate how the “Green Prince” – Yousef’s codename, taken from the color for Islam – personally picked out a suicide bomber in a Ramallah square and followed him until an arrest could be made.

Next week, Yousef’s memoir about his experiences in the terrorist organization will be published in the United States. Aptly named Son Of Hamas, the book is described on Yousef’s Facebook site as “a gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices.”

(Read full story)
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