Love of the Land: Israel's Qualitative Military Edge, Part III: The Palestinians

Israel's Qualitative Military Edge, Part III: The Palestinians

JINSA
JINSA Report #: 958
22 January '10

In this decade, threats to Israel from the inner circle of its enemies changed in a qualitative way as Hamas and Hezbollah acquired arms and training from Iran-and in the case of the Palestinians, the United States.

Arafat's Fatah launched the "second intifada" in late 2000 primarily from the West Bank. Hamas was not a real factor and Gaza was relatively quiet. Israel was comfortable in the early years with the Bush Administration's approach to the Palestinian Authority (PA), for example, not meeting Arafat, the June 24th speech, the President's consistent support for Israel's need to defend itself from terror across the borders including 2002's Operation Defensive Shield and the construction of the Security Fence, the 2005 Gaza disengagement, the 2006 Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead against Hamas rocket attacks.

In what turned out to be a mistake of historic proportion, however, Israel and the United States agreed to allow Hamas to run in the 2006 Palestinian election, changing the Palestinian dynamic after the Palestinian civil war and the ouster of Fatah from Gaza. And it was the Bush administration-with Israeli acquiescence and assistance-that undertook training of Palestinian "security forces" under the leadership of an U.S. Army general.

It wasn't the first time.

(Read full report)

Related: QME, Part II: U.S. Arms Sales to the Arabs, and Help (?) for Israel
Qualitative Military Edge, Part I: What it is and Where it Went

Love of the Land: Israel's Qualitative Military Edge, Part III: The Palestinians