Episode Notes:

Early on Monday morning, the Israeli Defense Forces launched their largest military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, in the West Bank, in decades. At least twelve Palestinians were killed and many more injured, while huge swaths of Jenin were destroyed. Israel withdrew its forces Wednesday, ending an operation it said was targeted at militants in the camp. Gabi Mitchell, director of undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame in Jerusalem, joined the Warcast to tell us more about what happened in Jenin.

[:50] What happened in Jenin?

[1:48] Why now?

[3:18] Was this a show of force?

[4:17] What can this tell us about the new Israeli government?

[6:52] What happens next?

[8:35] What has been the international response?

[10:13] What is the reaction from Israel’s Arab partners?

Episode Transcript

Erin O’Brien: My name is Erin O'Brien and I'm the membership editor at War on the Rocks. You are listening to the WarCast, the members-only podcast for what you need to know now. 

Early on Monday morning, the Israeli Defense Forces launched their largest military operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank in decades. At least 12 Palestinians were killed and many more injured, while huge swaths of Jenin were destroyed. Israel withdrew its forces Wednesday ending an operation it said was targeted at militants in the camp. Here to tell us more about what happened in Jenin is Gabi Mitchell, Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Jerusalem. Welcome to the WarCast, Gabi.

Gabi Mitchell: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

Erin O’Brien: So, why don't you start out by just telling us a little bit more about what happened in Jenin this week?

Gabi Mitchell: So, essentially the IDF launched a operation, not at the same scale as operations that it typically has done in the past in let's say Gaza, but a large scale operation involving somewhere around 1000 soldiers, to essentially target and eliminate Palestinian terrorists operating within the city of Jenin. In the last year according to the Israel Defense Forces, there have been somewhere around 50 shooting incidences involving individuals that the IDF claims are based or live in Jenin. So it was a very specific operation to essentially root out what they deemed as a growing and challenging security threat, not just to Israelis who are settlers in the West Bank, but also to Israelis living in Israel proper.

Erin O’Brien: And so why did they decide to do this now?

Gabi Mitchell: Part of it is circumstantial. We've definitely had over the last, let's say seven months, a wave of terror incidences that has necessitated a more aggressive military approach to tact in a tactful way, address the issue. But we can't necessarily separate it from the current political situation that Israel's government right now is in the midst of a serious challenge of legitimacy versus the public. And that the Palestinian militants in question have likely been taking advantage of these issues in order to advance their own agenda to target civilians or military personnel and to create havoc.

Obviously on top of all of that, you have a political situation between Israel and the Palestinians that has no horizon whatsoever. Palestinian authority has very little legitimacy. And all of the issues that Israel has tried to essentially patch up over the last couple of years, whether it be vis-a-vis Hamas, whether it be vis-a-vis the Palestinian Authority, have not enabled a constructive solution. And so in that vacuum, either individual organizations or terror cells have taken advantage of that space, and begun to operate with a higher degree of confidence and assurity that there wouldn't be necessarily a strong Israeli response.

Erin O’Brien: So what you're saying is that, this was more of an attempt to show that there would be a response to this kind of provocation?

Gabi Mitchell: Absolutely. And the showing is both directed towards say, Palestinian militants, the Palestinian Authority, but also to the Israeli public, which in the last couple of months has had a real crisis and issue with government policy, not vis-a-vis the Palestinians per se, but regarding judicial reform issues and a whole set of other domestic issues. But if you can't control the Palestinian issue, if you can't demonstrate a degree of competence in like one of the, if not the core issue in Israeli politics today, then you have zero legitimacy whatsoever. Especially for a government that's touted as the most right-wing in Israel's history. At the very least, if there's one subject that government should be able to claim, at least to the public that it's taken care of, then it should be the question of terrorism or our Palestinian militancy.

Erin O’Brien: I want to dig in a little more on that. Which is, what do you think that this operation can tell us about how, as you say, the very right-wing new Israeli government is going to behave towards the Palestinians and perhaps more broadly in terms of security?

Gabi Mitchell: Well, on one level, the degree of this operation within the West Bank, the use of drones and helicopters, which we haven't seen in two decades, is demonstrative of both a real desire to demonstrate to the public that this government is going to handle business in a different way. But it also demonstrates just successive right-wing governments over the last 20 years not addressing the core issues of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The government has essentially been using tactical approach to a strategic problem. The strategic problem being the lack of political horizon, or even minimal dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian authority. And the replacement for that has been sending in the military, and trying a military approach.

This is of course the kind of knee jerk response that one would expect with a right-wing government. But really over the last 20 years, successive right-wing governments, or center-right governments, have essentially pushed to the side the possibility of any kind of meaningful dialogue with the Palestinian Authority. And so this is the boiling over point. Where you have a Palestinian Authority that lacks legitimacy, and you have an Israeli government that feels the need at a populist level to respond to acts of militancy and terror. And so, has kind of upped its approach, both because obviously at a tactical level believes that it's going to be more effective, but also at a political level thinks it's going to be more effective as well.

And even though polling data is not necessarily the most conducive way of understanding how Israelis understand the legitimacy of the government, the polling data of this week demonstrates that Netanyahu and Likud party's position actually improved at the end of this operation, compared to where it was even a week ago. So even if it's not necessarily the best way of measuring the government's legitimacy, there is a direct correlation in the eyes of probably center to center-right voters between the government's overall legitimacy, and its capacity to address Palestinian militancy or terror.

Erin O’Brien: If this is playing well let's say, where do you think we go from here? What happens next?

Gabi Mitchell: The overarching issue here is that without a strategic approach and without dialogue, this situation is likely to repeat itself in some way, shape or form in the coming weeks and months. Either through increased Palestinian militancy, or let's say, acts of sympathetic aggression by other Palestinian organizations, whether it be Hamas and Gaza, whether it be the Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Lebanon, as we saw this week, engaging a little bit on that border. But more importantly, the cycle of violence has also brought in a more active third party, which is independent Israeli settlers who are actually also engaging in reprisal type activities towards Palestinians in the West Bank.

So that kind of circular pattern without any kind of political horizon, without a real clear strategic approach by the government saying, "This is actually what we hope to accomplish," is likely to repeat itself. It could be weeks, it could be months, but nothing suggests that one single operation in Jenin is going to be enough. Because all of the other structural components are still in place, not all the militants are killed, the Palestinian Authority still lacks legitimacy and capacity to control those spaces. And so, a much more thoughtful and constructive approach that requires both engagement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian authority, but likely also American engagement as well and UN engagement is probably required.

Erin O’Brien: Well, that's a great segue to my next question, which is, what has been the international response to this?

Gabi Mitchell: In general, the international response has been negative. The Israeli argument to engage in forceful military action to create deterrence towards Palestinian terrorism, is something that has a threshold in the international community. And that includes the United States. Because without a political process attached to it, without any kind of meaningful dialogue between the Israel and the Palestinian Authority, these kinds of operations don't go particularly far in the eyes of the international community. Especially when there are civilian casualties involved. And most of the militants, at least according to the IDF, or most of the individuals who were killed according to the IDF were militants. But there were civilian casualties, there was damage to property.

And all of these different kinds of components are not constructive to the resolution of the conflict. And from the perspective of the international community, that's what they think Israel and the Palestinian Authority should be engaged in. Not just combating terror or deterring militant behavior, but also in political dialogue. So, the international community is frustrated, and doubly frustrated by the fact that this government is continuing to advance its commitment to constructing settlements, and essentially advancing an agenda that is non-constructive to the advancement of any kind of meaningful political dialogue or the prospect of peace.

Erin O’Brien: So, in the past few years, Israel has pursued dialogue and kind of warming relations with a lot of Arab partners, and a lot of historical rivals. And I'm curious how those new partners, let's say, or new warmer relations have responded to this?

Gabi Mitchell: So, one of the most interesting developments is the engagement of UAE in the Palestinian space. Obviously when we speak about the UAE, more often than not we're talking about its engagement with Israel via the Abraham Accords, and the kind of desire both on the part of Israel and the Emirates to build a constructive relationship. And over the last couple of years it appeared, at least outwardly, that meant that the Palestinians were not a part of the picture, and they were being pushed to the side. Increasingly though, it's clear that for whatever set of strategic reasons, the UAE is also interested in demonstrating, at least at a public level, its commitment to the Palestinian cause or Palestinian interests.

Most notably, this week it pledged $15 million through UNRA to help rebuild the refugee camp. Now, one could be critical of that, say 15 million actually isn't all that much. It could be much more considering the party that we're talking about. And it's very easy to make a donation after something is destroyed. What are you constructively doing in order to ensure that some of these processes that are encouraging and facilitating militant behavior are preventive? And so, I do think that there are ways of being critical of both the UAE and other actors in the Arab world, many of whom have been critical, but haven't necessarily jumped forward and said, "We want to be a part of a more engaged international process of dialogue."

And I think that that's reflective of the lack of commitment to the Palestinian Authority, and the feeling that the Palestinian Authority in that enterprise has kind of reached a dead end. At the very least until Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ends his tenure as president. But without a clear succession plan, who knows? And this is part of the reason, at the very least, I would argue that there is more need now than ever for international engagement on Palestinian affairs, and Palestinian Israeli affairs. Knowing that right now there is no political horizon, and the components to Oslo Peace Process, which is now 30 years old, and at best on life support, requires new engagement. 

Either new ideas, or new parties and actors who can kind of reimagine what the post-Abbas era is going to look like. Because all of these manifestations, violent manifestations that we've seen in the last couple of months, whether it be in Gaza, or in the West Bank, are reflective of a growing sense within the Palestinian public, that the Palestinian Authority has no legitimacy, that they can essentially operate and engage with limited consequences. And that time has come new leadership, whether it be at a grassroots level or otherwise.

Erin O’Brien: All right. Well, we could keep talking about this for ages, but we've got to cut it off there. So thank you so much for coming on the WarCast.

Gabi Mitchell: Thank you. Really appreciate it.