Rehearsals were carried out on Monday in Beit El for the ceremony for the incoming commander. Noam Tibon was leaving. Nitzan Elon was coming in. A stage was set up, and a band played marching songs. There was a holiday feeling in the air.
I was there a month and a half ago, in what seems, looking back, as a milestone in the circuitous and blood-filled history of Israeli-Palestine relations. The heads of the Palestinian security organizations came to talk to the Judea and Samaria Division commander, Tibon, and to the director of the Civil Administration, Poli Mordechai. They knew that a journalist would be at the meeting and report on its contents. Nonetheless, they said surprising things, with unusual openness. In the background was Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip and its threat to also take over the West Bank. The heads of the security organizations felt that their lives and the lives of their families was in danger. When there's a sword at your neck, your mouth is freer.
'There is no rivalry between us,' said the commander of the Palestinian General Security Organization, Abu el-Fatah, among other things. 'But we have a common enemy.'
'We are in a very difficult battle,'' said the head of Military Intelligence, Majid Faraj. 'We've decided to battle to the end. Everything is open, everything is on the table. Hamas is the enemy, and we've decided to go to battle against it. It is a matter of self defense.' And on and on.
PA Chairman Abu Mazen and Prime Minister Fayyad scolded the security organizations commanders after this was reported. Hamas will exploit this for its propaganda, they warned. It will describe you as collaborators. And indeed, Hamas celebrated for a day or two. But it won't be able to change what has happened.
A presentation prepared by the division highlights the turnabout. In 2002, terror attacks originating in the West Bank killed 260 Jews in Israel and 150 people in Judea and Samaria. In 2008, four were killed in Israel and not a single one in Judea and Samaria, and in 2009, nobody was killed in Israel, and one person, a boy in the settlement of Bat Ayin, in Judea and Samaria, was killed. The numbers are no less impressive when it comes to the Palestinians: in 2007, 76 were killed; 15 were killed in 2009. In military terms, this is a victory, there is no other word for it.
How did this turnabout come about? I met last week for a background talk with a high ranking IDF officer who has been involved in the process since the summer of 2007. 'The first task was to cope with terror,' he said. 'This meant the money coming from the outside, the cell handlers, the suicide bombers. Gangs ruled the Palestinian street.
'The weak point of the terror organizations was explosive experts. We took the 200 wanted men in Judea and Samaria and marked 15 who were the explosives experts. We assassinated most of them and arrested the others. What ensured our success was the cooperation between the IDF and the GSS.
'The success against terror is based on three things: intelligence superiority, operational freedom of action and control of the perimeter. In the summer of 2007 we had good intelligence, moderate freedom of action and a fence full of holes. 'And then something happened: Hamas took over Gaza.'
OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, Division Commander Tibon and Civil Administration Director Mordechai realized that the rules of the game had changed. 'We redefined the enemy. Previously we talked about terror organizations. Now we said: Hamas. They now had a state within a state. Our approach was to destroy it.
'We discovered that they owned malls, cow farms, bakeries, clinics, residential buildings. By means of investments they produce the money that feeds terror. We created a legal infrastructure to confiscate their assets. We made arrests.
'The Palestinian Authority changed right in front of our eyes. The Fayyad government was formed. It was clear that they wanted to give Hamas a fight. We began to meet with the heads of the security organizations. The decision was to talk with them only about work-related matters?not about the right of return and not about the peace process. At the top of our agenda we put law and order in the cities and the war on Hamas. We said, we will work with you directly, without mediators. We were surprised by the intensity of their willingness to cooperate.
'The third turning point was the intensification of American involvement. This also happened in wake of the failure in Gaza. The Americans trained four battalions of soldiers who obey their commander and not the clan. This was a rare combination of interests.
'The GSS did something superb?the wanted men agreement. The agreement was meant only for the wanted men from the Tanzim. This conformed to Abu Mazen's line?transferring the war on the enemy from Israel to Hamas and getting rid of the rule of the gangs. They gave up their weapons, spent a short time in jail and were pardoned. Just over 100 of them signed the agreement. 95 of them honored it. We got the others.
'You have to realize the depth of the change: Arafat visited the Jenin refugee camp once in his life. The podium from where he spoke was burned. Condoleezza Rice visited the refugee camp just before her term of office was up. She had no problem there.
'We learned the lessons that the Americans learned from the fighting in Iraq. You take one place, Jenin for example, you crush terror there, you put a strong police force there and move on. We started with Jenin because there was a fence there and no settlers. At first, it failed. Fayyad said, let's try again. We tried again, and it caught. We needed a lot of patience.
'Later you have to give people hope and a normal life. To work on the economy. Without coordination with us, Fayyad launched a series of impressive actions. He provided immediate livelihood to thousands of people. Now, as the world economic crisis is on the verge of ending, we have to go for long term investments. There is a stock exchange in Nablus. At the height of the crisis, it dropped only 20%, less than other stock exchanges in the world. Now it is rising. There is a sharp rise in car purchases: after we removed the roadblocks, they have somewhere to go.
'The watershed was the incident in Kalkilya. There was a Hamas cell there that three times had brought suicide cars into Israel. We failed in catching it, and we therefore had to close the city. The Palestinians attacked, they lost two soldiers and killed the cell. They buried their soldiers as heroes and forbade Hamas from putting up a mourners' booth.
'The operation in Gaza was the big test: the decision was to calm. Instead of closing roads [in the West Bank], we opened them. Even when we reached 1,000 killed in Gaza, the West Bank was quiet. The Palestinian soccer league continued as usual. There were small demonstrations, which were dispersed by the security organizations. When the operation was over, we said, we have to make the relief measures into permanent policy.
'The greatest achievement was that the moderates defeated the extremists. In other places, extremism wins. Not in the West Bank. And this happened without a lot of noise, without fanfare and without awarding medals.'
The sense of accomplishment was so great, that when Maj. Gen. Shamni and Tibon were asked what would happen if arch-terrorists were released in a Shalit deal, they answered, without faltering, we'll manage.
The sore point in this wonderful story is that everything that was achieved is fragile and reversible. At the moment Hamas has no operational ability to launch a real Intifada, but it would be enough for small Intifada to again undermine security between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Without a peace process, it won't last, the IDF realizes this?mainly the IDF realizes it.