It’s taken nearly three years to come to the obvious conclusion: The horrific massacre of October 7 happened by foolishly enabling a vicious enemy whom we preferred to view as potential peace partners, believing they could be steered in the right direction with enough enticing incentives.
The costly price for that pipe dream was the death of thousands of Israeli soldiers and civilians, the incomprehensible torment endured by hostages, and the unleashing of a virulent worldwide antisemitism, the likes of which hasn’t been seen for almost a century.
The only thing that could rival such a deadly blunder is the repeat of another one. As inconceivable as that may sound, there is a good case to be made for what appears to be the systematic planning of a future massive-scale attack on the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria, home to an estimated 542,000 Jewish residents.
Following a deadly shooting that killed two Israelis two weeks ago, it’s not unusual for this area, beyond Israel’s Green Line, to be on high alert. But, in this tinderbox, an unprecedented and disturbing buildup has quietly been taking place. This could make October 7 seem like a minor prelude to a far-reaching Jewish genocide of Holocaust proportions.
Detailed in a recent article by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), titled “The PA’s Massive Army Threatens Millions of Israelis Within Just 22 Kilometers,” the Palestinian Authority, created by the Oslo Accords to oversee local civic management as well as law enforcement, “was originally limited to 12,000 individuals, equipped with 4,000 rifles, 4,000 pistols, 120 light and heavy machine guns and 15 armored vehicles.”
The Palestinian Authority now poses a real threat to Israel
Over the course of the last 33 years, since being signed, that 12,000-man force has risen to 70,000, posing a major military threat to the millions of Israelis who live within close proximity to those areas. Given the tiny size of the Jewish state, which encompasses many communities with dense populations.
In this predictable breach of the Oslo Accords, not only has the workforce of the PA grown by nearly a whopping 500%, but its arsenal of weapons is one that rivals a small army, including “tens of thousands of rifles and pistols, machine guns, dozens of armored vehicles, and more.”
Does anyone think that such a substantial increase in manpower and weapons is needed to curb its own Palestinian population in those areas? Or is it more likely that this huge incremental buildup, while few were paying attention, is a troubling harbinger of another potential Jewish massacre?
And what would happen if those storehouses of weapons were distributed among the 2-3 million non-Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria? An army, the size of China, would descend upon the people of Israel, with the intent to commit Jewish genocide, to realize their dream of “from the river to the sea.”
Why are we, yet again, so late to this game? How were we lulled into thinking that the Palestinian Authority could be entrusted as a credible and reliable source of law enforcement that would not pose a threat to our people?
And what has tipped off the JCFA, believing that something very nefarious is going on? Was it the military training, including parachuting, sniping, artillery, and heavy machine guns, that this so-called police force was receiving? Or was it the arrest of 12% of these “security personnel” whose actions were remarkably identical to those of terrorists?
Perhaps, Israel realized that its “veto power over the recruitment of new PA forces” was being ignored, allowing their numbers to increase to that of a formidable army.
Whatever it was, now suddenly, there’s been a rude awakening – a call to rouse ourselves from the naïve deception of thinking that Jew-haters could be trusted to protect the very people they label occupiers and invaders of Palestinian land.
Jews in Judea and Samaria are at risk of a similar Oct. 7 invasion
Regrettably, successive Israeli governments have given a wink and a nod, including Ehud Olmert, who, in 2008, approved the transfer of an additional 1,000 Kalashnikov rifles and tens of thousands of rounds to the PA. In 2016, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Avigdor Liberman approved the transfer of five additional armored vehicles to the PA.
Then, in May 2019, Netanyahu, once again, approved the transfer of another 10 armored vehicles to the PA (albeit as fulfilling the commitment of a previous administration).
In September 2023, the PA received 1,500 weapons and an additional eight armored vehicles, donated by the Biden administration.
Now, this fiasco nightmare must be dealt with immediately before Israel is faced with another historic calamity that could explode at any moment, endangering millions of innocents while they sleep in their beds.
The lengthy and comprehensive study of the JCFA must be taken seriously, along with its recommendations, which call for an end to all approvals for weapons, ammunition, and armored vehicle transfers.
An immediate reduction of personnel must be scaled back to the originally approved force of 12,000. Closure of terror army training bases, immediate oversight to gain transparency, and an end to foreign funding and training must also happen as Israel regains full control to avoid the next massacre.
The fact that it has taken 33 years for Israel to open its eyes to a disaster in the making is not only shocking but testifies to an enormous lapse of judgment and ineptitude among the leaders who have promised to keep us safe.
If we cannot do better than this, then our iconic pledge of “Never Again” is just a meaningless vow with no substance to back it up. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the Revisionist Zionist movement, was committed to a Jewish state being built on an “unyielding military and political iron wall of strength that Arab leadership could not breach,” as he wrote in “Iron Wall.”
Sadly, October 7 taught us that we have not been as vigilant as we should have been, keeping one step ahead of an enemy whose goal is still built upon the genocide of Israel’s Jewish citizenry so that they can inhabit our ancestral land.
We learned the hard way, through the horrors of October 7, that we can no longer depend upon the fox to guard the hen house. Thank God, we may still have time to undo what could very well be the next genocide in waiting.
The writer is a former principal of Jerusalem elementary and middle schools and was a member of Kibbutz Re’im from 1994 to 1999. She is the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, based on the time-tested wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs, available on Amazon.