Why is the IDF catching Jewish terrorists less than Palestinian ones? - analysis

The IDF is doing a better job at catching Palestinian terrorists than Jewish ones. Anecdotal evidence and statistical evidence both bear this out.

As of August 2024, there were 9,881 Palestinian security inmates being held by Israel. 3,432 Palestinians were being held in administrative detention along with 1,584 Palestinian “unlawful combatants,” 2,074 sentenced prisoners, and 2,791 pre-indictment or preconviction detainees.

We also know that in the West Bank alone, close to 5,000 Palestinians have been detained over the course of the war.Sometimes Palestinian terrorists are not immediately caught after an attack, but quite often they are, and it is very rare that they are not caught or killed within a period of weeks or months.

Yet, in multiple February 2023 incidents of Jewish terrorists attacking Palestinians in Huwara, we know that out of hundreds of Jewish attackers, less than ten were arrested, and an even smaller number seem to be getting prosecuted.

So far out of over 100 Jewish terrorists who attacked the Palestinian village of Jit in mid-August, only four have been detained.

These trends are not new.

Outgoing IDF Central Commander for the West Bank, Maj.-Gen Yehuda Fuchs, said this in his final speech on July 8, current Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar recently accused officials like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of sometimes indirectly and sometimes almost explicitly encouraging the phenomenon.; former Shin Bet and IDF Central Commanders have been sounding similar warnings on and off certainly since 2014.

The IDF and Shin Bet have also accused Ben-Gvir of discouraging the police from reining in Jewish violence, whether in the West Bank or against humanitarian aid trucks trying to get to Kerem Shalom to bring food to Gaza Palestinians earlier in the war.

There has been extremist Jewish violence against Palestinians with arrests significantly lower than expected for many years, despite this violence being lower than that of the Palestinians.

The problem isn’t bringing caught perpetrators to justice, when Palestinians have been killed by a Jew or Jews; that has been happening many times since 2014. Once caught, Israel has pushed hard to prosecute such persons.

On August 15, The Jerusalem Post reported exclusively that the 2019 indictment against a full-bodied minor (whose identity is under gag order) for the alleged killing of Palestinian female and mother Aisha Rabi in October 2018 could reach a verdict in later 2024 or early 2025.

This would not be the only case of Jewish terrorists facing justice for violence against Palestinians, with Yosef Haim Ben-David, the murderer of Palestinian minor Muhammad Abu Khdeir in 2014, and Amiram Ben-Uliel, the murderer of the Palestinian Dawabsheh family in 2015, both sentenced to life in jail in recent years. Elor Ben Azaria, Ben Deri, and other IDF soldiers have also received prison time for killing Palestinians.

However – this does not address the fact that most Jewish terrorists are never caught in the first place.

So why does Israel catch Jewish terrorists less often than Palestinian ones?

This is partially due to the constant passing of the ball back and forth between the IDF and the Police, neither of who wants the politically unpopular job of reining in Jewish violence against Palestinians.

Anyone who does that job “well” in recent years comes under attack by Ben-Gvir and others who seem to always be opposed to indicting or convicting Jews accused of attacking Palestinians.

Top IDF sources have made it clear to The Post that the military’s main role is to fight wars against other foreign militaries like Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas – not to enforce law and order to block small-scale Jewish violence against Palestinians. They believe that the police should be handling Jewish violence in the West Bank, whereas the police, (even before Ben-Gvir), said they could not carry out large operations in Palestinian areas without the IDF taking the lead.

What has changed since Huwara in 2023 and now with Jit, is that the attacks by Jews on Palestinians are no longer solely small-scale.

Now there is a pattern of large-scale attacks even if the number of them is still small in relative terms.

During the Second Intifada, Israel decided that it could not view Palestinian terror from the West Bank as a mere “law enforcement” issue with very limited rules of engagement. Rather, it was a terrorism issue, which meant more aggressive rules of engagement.

If a Palestinian throws a rock at an IDF vehicle, breaks the windshield and then flees, even if no one in the IDF vehicle was hurt and even though the Palestinian is running away, and no longer presents an immediate threat, IDF open-fire rules allow shooting the Palestinian’s legs to make sure he does not escape.

At Jit, despite over 100 Jews attacking Palestinians and the IDF soldiers’ lives also being endangered by Jews, all the IDF did was physically push the Jewish attackers out of the village, firing in the air at most.

Sources said they failed to arrest any of the Jewish attackers because it was hard to catch them running in all directions at night. Yet, if the soldiers were allowed to shoot the attacker’s legs when trying to arrest Jews involved in large-scale attacks, maybe they would have caught more of them. Perhaps also fewer Jews would risk attacking Palestinians.

Confronted with this possible change to the open-fire rules, both current and former IDF officials who handle such issues did not view such a change as remotely likely. Some said this change was very dependent on the unique circumstances on the ground, for which only the commander seeing things in real-time could make a decision. Others said that there was no principled reason why IDF soldiers could not open fire on the legs of fleeing Jewish attackers, but that this could only be employed if there was no less lethal way of arresting them.

Yet, these responses dismiss significant evidence that the IDF is doing an extremely poor job of catching such people.4 out of 100 is a 4% success rate. Clearly, less lethal means are not working and the current or former commanders on the ground have not acted aggressively enough. This was also the conclusion of the IDF probe of the Jit incident, issued on Wednesday.

A much more honest read is that IDF soldiers shooting at Jews legs (even not trying to kill them) to protect Palestinians would either be too politically explosive, or that too many IDF soldiers would ignore the orders and fake some technical sounding reason why they could not fire (such as innocent people being mixed in with attackers.)

There might be creative alternatives such as firing a kind of tracer that cannot be removed or an object which could sedate someone trying to flee. A large permanent contingent of soldiers guarding all crossover areas throughout the West Bank could succeed, but is also unrealistic in terms of resources.

In the meantime, it is not clear that the IDF has seriously contended with how it will prevent the next Huwara or Jit. If this does not change, no one should be surprised when another IDF probe comes out apologizing for failing to protect Palestinians.