Under the shadow of the justified concerns that terrorism will spread to more sectors, the main issue of the conflict between Israel and its radicalized enemies – on the Temple Mount, the Gaza Strip, in Beirut, in Jenin, in Umm al-Fahm and in the Negev – has been forgotten. The conflict is about the "rules of the game" when it comes to deterrence – who will force whom to bend to their will. Sometimes, there is a place for a short tactical compromise, on the condition that it leads to a painful and humiliating dictate.
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These enemies – Hamas, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin, the hooligan rioters on the Temple Mount, the leaders of pogroms in mixed cities, and the lawbreakers in Wadi Ara and on the roads of the Negev – are aware that Israel is addicted to "quiet" and longs to reduce clashes.
Given this addition, they aspire to clone Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's success in Lebanon in deterring Israel from attacking his people in Lebanese territory, which allows his organization to gain strength, thus maintaining that deterrence. Some of them are able, to a large extent, to select their zone of conflict and time it at their own convenience, and even force Israel to help fund them and deepen their hold on their own people while they wage war. They depend on the absolutely ridiculous hope in the Kirya military headquarters and in Jerusalem that "full bellies hold violence in check." Hamas is instigating riots on the Temple Mount and using every tool in its belt to promote outbreaks of violence in the West Bank and inside the Green Line, while calmly building itself up in Gaza. Its status among the population of Gaza is based on the hefty funding Israel encourages, which comes directly from Qatar, and from the many Gazans who work in Israel. Hamas even manages to get Israel to release detained rioters, threatening to escalate the violence if it dares reduce the financial aid to its leadership.
Israel's other enemies are learning from Hamas' success. Even in the rogue Jenin sector, Israel doesn't withhold economic support for more than a few days at a time, for fear that economic distress in the capital of terrorism will "radicalize" the terrorists and their supporters who control the refugee camp and large parts of the city. In the rest of Israel, it isn't only the country's declared enemies in the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement and Balad who are inciting and making threats. The mayor of the Bedouin town Rahat was clearly hinting at violence when he said that the "desecration of Al-Aqsa" [Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount] gave "legitimacy to a response" by Arab Israelis "from the north to the far south."
Israel is taking the correct course of action in its head-on battle against armed terrorism in Judea and Samaria and Gaza – conducting raids, arrests, and encounters with the violent actors themselves. It is also correct to compensate the innocent population in the PA with economic and other types of boons, when the PA works with Israel to contain the violence. In Gaza and the terror hotspots in Judea and Samaria, Israel has made a mistake in its painful continued use of "carrots," while rejecting the use of the heavy stick needed to punish and deter outbreaks of violence.
The threat from the heart of the country is worse than anything else. After last year's riots in mixed cities, which high-ranking Arab leaders supports, Israel needs to decide that any expressions of violence or hints at use of it or sympathy with it are politically out of bounds. When a violent culture makes a home in the heart of Arab society, simultaneously breaking out between clans on Negev highways, in mixed cities, and in rioting in support of the enemy, it needs to be addressed, by different means but equal determination, every place it exists – in Rahat and Umm al-Fahm, just like Gaza and Jenin.
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