‘Jewish terrorism’ in West Bank is a moral failure that puts Israel’s security at risk, ex-IDF chiefs warn
‘Jewish terrorism’ in the occupied West Bank poses a grave strategic threat to the country’s security, top former Israeli spies and generals have warned.
Four former heads of the internal security service responsible for the West Bank (the Shin Bet), eight former police commissioners, four former military intelligence heads, three former Mossad directors and three former heads of the Israel Defence Forces, have demanded an end to a “profound moral failure” by Israel’s government.
“The Jewish terrorism raging in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], with the tolerance — or worse, the backing — of government authorities, constitute not only a profound moral failure, but a grave strategic threat to Israel’s security, especially in a time of war,” a letter published on Thursday said.
The group of 22 of Israel’s most senior former security chiefs said the “acts of terrorism… endangered soldiers already involved in a multi-front war”.
“They inflame Palestinian terror and advance Iranian strategic interests” but also “erode the moral foundations and values of Israeli society” while intensifying international hostility and “weaken Israel’s legitimacy.
“A small but dangerous extremist fringe, emboldened by irresponsible political backing and enabled by the silence of the national leadership, must not be allowed to endanger Israel’s security or erode the foundations of the Zionist project,” the letter continues.
“We call upon Israel’s leaders — and its citizens — to act now, before the black flag irrevocably stains theblue-and-white, our proud national colors.”
The “a black flag” is a clear reference to the flags flown by the so-called Islamic State and other groups violently committed to annihilating Israel.
None of the leaders who signed the letter have been shy of killing to protect Israel. Mossad bosses run overseas assassination programmes, while Shin Bet usually handles “targeted killing” of alleged terrorists.
Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, once dressed as a woman to carry out an assassination plot in Lebanon and commanded Israel’s most elite special forces unit.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister, has publicly focussed on attacking Iran alongside the US.
But the Israeli securocrats, many of whom have a long history in trying to end Israel’s conflicts through negotiation rather than outright conquest, accuse his administration of “tolerance – or worse – the backing” for Jewish terrorist attacks against Palestinians on the West Bank.
The Israeli human rights organization B’Stelem has described a systematic campaign of killing and land dispossessions by Jewish Israelis backed by government soldiers as “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinian population of the West Bank.
Occupied by Israel in 1967 Palestinians on the West Bank have limited self government in a patchwork of territory mostly centred around the urban areas.
