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 pre-conviction 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 10 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, Yedhua 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, and former Shin Bet and IDF Central Commanders have been sounding somewhat 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 current war.

There has been extremist Jewish violence against Palestinians with significantly below expectations arrests for many years, even though that violence is still at a much lower volume than Palestinian violence.

The problem isn’t bringing caught perpetrators to justice, that has been happening many times since 2014, when Palestinians have been killed by a Jew or Jews.

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 (his identity is under gag order) for the alleged killing of Palestinian female and mother Aysha Rabi in October 2018 could be close to a verdict in later 2024 or early 2025. 

This would not be the only such case of Jewish terrorists facing justice for violence against Palestinians, with the 2014 murderer of Palestinian minor Muhammad Abu Khadir, Yoseph Chaim Ben David, and the 2015 murderer of the Palestinian Dawabsheh family, Amiram Ben Uliel, both sentenced to life in jail in recent years.

Elor Ben Azariah, Ben Deri, and other IDF soldiers have also been given prison time for killing Palestinians.

But 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?

Some of it is the constant passing 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 terrorism 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 and 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 as such no longer presents an immediate threat, IDF open fire rules allow shooting for the Palestinian’s legs to make sure he does not escape.

At Jit, despite over 100 Jews attacking Palestinians and the IDF soldiers “live being in danger” from the Jews as well, all they did was physically push the Jewish attackers out of the village and at most fire in the air.

Sources said that they failed to arrest any of the over 100 Jews because it was hard to catch the attackers running in all different directions at night.

But if the soldiers were allowed to shoot for the legs when trying to arrest Jews involved in large scale attacks, maybe they would have caught more of them. Maybe 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 seem to view such a change as remotely likely.

Some said this question was very dependent on the unique circumstances on the ground, which only the commander seeing things in real time could decide. 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 present the issue as if there is not already 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  whoever the commander on the ground has been has not acted aggressively enough. This was also the conclusion of the IDF probe issued on Wednesday of the Jit incident.

A much more honest read is that IDF soldiers shooting at Jews legs (even not trying to kill) to protect Palestinians would just be either too politically explosive or likely 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. Firing some kind of tracer that cannot be removed or object which could sedate someone trying to flee.

A huge 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 that does not change, no one should be surprised when another IDF probe comes out apologizing for failing to protect Palestinians.