2 min read
It is tempting to immediately assign last night’s terror attack in Tel Aviv to the wave of ‘Third Intifada’ or ‘Knife Intifada’ terror attacks that began in October.
At least on the surface, however, this atrocity - the first deadly attack in Israel for exactly three months - bears few of the hallmarks of previous months’ assaults, which have mainly involved young people acting alone, spontaneously and often at the prompting of incitement on social media.
Wednesday’s shooting was a much more ambitious operation. The fact that the target was far from the Green Line – a shopping thoroughfare in central Tel Aviv – meant that the two killers would have had to be transported to their intended destination by a third party, which implies a degree of logistical complexity.
The use of guns – in this case, imitations of the Swedish-made Carl Gustav recoilless rifle – indicates the pair had access to West Bank gun dealers, as well as at least rudimentary training in how to operate the weapons.
But what marks this attack out from the previous terror wave more than anything else is the fact that the terrorists were cousins from a family with a long history of Hamas contacts.
Their West Bank village, Yatta, is well-known religious extremism, and it would not be surprising if a link to a Salafist movement – perhaps even Daesh – emerges in the next few days.
So what does the attack mean for Israel?
In one way, very little. This particular rampage was part of a different – and more longstanding – tradition that has been spilling blood on the streets of Israel on a regular basis since the Second Intifada and beyond.
The most recent example of this was the suicide bombing of a Jerusalem bus in April, which was organised by Hamas and closely resembled Wednesday’s attack in terms of ambition and planning.
Many plots such as these are stopped in their tracks because they involve well-known actors – such as Hamas – and a networked operation that is, by nature, easier to intercept. As one security expert told me, the Sarona Market killers were either slightly more skilful than average – or got lucky.
There are not many short-term policies that can stop terrorism emerging from villages like Yatta. The radicalisation there is too deeply embedded.
In that context, Israel’s new Deputy Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s tough warning that life in Yatta “will not carry on as normal” is probably the only realistic Band Aid that Israel can apply to the situation at this stage.
The young ‘Knife Intifada’ radicals who, on a whim and a tweet, grab a knife and take a bus to Damascus Gate where they attack the first person they see, are still within reach, however.
Beyond the murderous messages they see on Facebook and hear on TV, their hatred has also been stoked by continued failures of politicians to provide hope, a persistent sense of discrimination, and a lack of an economic future. And to change that, only a realistic hope of an independent Palestinian state will do.
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