Biden Gives Israel a Pass on West Bank Violence

Far right government has a free hand to use Apache helicopters against Palestinian towns.

In the last episode of Fauda, the Israeli counterterrorism thriller on Netflix, things go terribly wrong for the show’s main characters, all members of an undercover intelligence unit fighting Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 

As the Israelis stealthily close in on a West Bank house where a wanted Palestinian resistance leader is holed up, they come under withering automatic weapons fire from Palestinian militants in surrounding buildings. An Israeli armored car moves in to protect them, but the militants detonate a powerful IED that blows the vehicle to fiery pieces. With most of the unit’s members now either wounded or running out of ammo, the Palestinians inch forward, moving in for the kill. . .

Ultra-nationalist Israeli officials are aping art with escalating raids on Palestinians, like one dramatized here in the counterterrorism series Fauda.

Thrilling television, to be sure. But last week, life imitated art in the West Bank town of Jenin. There, what should have been a routine Israeli operation to arrest two Palestinians terror suspects turned into a bloody, hours-long gunbattle against dozens of well-armed militants—an obvious intelligence failure by Israel’s vaunted counterterrorism force.

As the fighting intensified, Palestinian IEDs destroyed Israeli armored vehicles that tried to extract the soldiers. Eventually, the soldiers called in close air support for the first time since the second Intifada in 2002. A U.S.-built Apache AH-64 attack helicopter soon hovered over the fighting, unleashing Hellfire missiles and torrents of machine gun fire that suppressed the Palestinian fire and enabled the raiding party to exfiltrate Jenin with their captives. 

The final casualty count, however, was a sobering reminder of what future clashes will cost: six Palestinians killed, including two 15-year-old bystanders, and nearly 100 others wounded, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Health. Eight Israeli soldiers were wounded, a military spokesman said, adding that the Apache was also hit by gunfire. In addition, seven Israeli military vehicles were either destroyed or heavily damaged by IEDs,  military sources said, noting the devices used an unusually large amount of high explosive. 

A recently retired Israeli intelligence officer, who asked not to be named, placed the blame for the intelligence failure on the country’s new ultra-nationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who prefers to conduct such raids in broad daylight, rather than under the cover of darkness, as a way to underscore Israel’s 24-hour security presence in the West Bank.

“Ben-Gvir likes to say Israel must show the Palestinians who is the landlord here,” this person told SpyTalk. The government’s aggressive policies in the West Bank, he added, were undermining morale in army and intelligence units.