Hundreds of Israeli citizens Thursday blocked a convoy of armored vehicles and weapons to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Shechem. This, despite initial IDF orders to facilitate safe transfer for the materiel.
Residents of the Samarian towns of Eli and Shiloh formed a human blockade on Route 60 after learning that flatbed trucks were delivering armored vehicles to the PA. According to Israeli media, the IDF arrived on the scene after one of the trucks was intercepted by the residents, who refused to allow it to continue to its destination in PA-occupied Shechem. The IDF initially insisted the truck be let through, but finally arrested the driver and confiscated the vehicle only after “heavy pressure” and a “prolonged blockade by the residents who refused to leave the area.”
The PA continues to receive upgraded weapons and armored vehicles. The Biden administration last month sent the PA a fresh shipment of armored vehicles and “modern automatic weapons equipped with laser [sights].”
“The weapons that were distributed to the PA through the Oslo Accords resulted in over a thousand dead,” said one citizen who participated in the blockade. “The weapons and materiel being transferred now will exact a much higher price.”
He was referring to the Israel government’s agreement in the 1994 Oslo Accords to allow the “Palestinian police” to “possess…up to 45 wheeled armored vehicles of a type to be agreed between the two sides [Israel and PA]…The use of wheeled armored vehicles…in the vicinity of the Settlements shall be approved through the relevant District Coordinating Office.” (Oslo Accords, Annex I, Article III, para. 5a3)
In the thirty years since, the United States and European Union provided the PA with hundreds of armored vehicles. The Jerusalem Post claims the vehicles “are supposed to be used to bring increased law and order,” although there has been no application for armored personnel carriers in protecting PA installations.
The Palestinian first strike capability is a strategy developed in the early stages of the Middle East peace process. According to the strategy, a first strike attack would be preceded by a long period of demonization, misery, and random murder, intended to wear down Israeli will of to continue living in and defending Judea and Samaria.
The strategy assumes that mere “terrorism” is insufficient, because there are about 30 or 40 Jewish communities that are likely to be recalcitrant and hold on, despite the various forms of harassment that “terrorism” involves.
Frontline News Director Mordechai Sones explained: “Palestinian statehood becoming a fait accompli will require the sudden collapse of a select number of vital Jewish towns. This can only be achieved in a coordinated overnight first strike involving both advancing PA and retreating IDF units.”
He continued: “Therefore, security in Judea and Samaria has been specifically designed in a way that will be vulnerable to a certain type of key that is not immediately perceptible to residents encountering them. Thus, the gates and armaments of Judea and Samaria (and in general the entire security apparatus) have been designed, selected, and controlled universally to be uniquely vulnerable to a specific tool that has been then semi-secretly given to the PA – armored vehicles.
“Armored vehicles are a particular threat to Jewish communities because they can easily smash their way through town gates. As we saw in the south, the armored vehicles could roam within the community because the IDF has withheld anti-armor weapons from Jewish stockpiles. The IDF also appears to be withholding information about Arab armored vehicles in Judea and Samaria.”
Sones stressed: “The PA did not secretly conspire to come up with a force of armored vehicles. It was given to them at Oslo. The gates were built a certain way, and certain weapons are denied to the communities. For example, there exist 7.62mm armor-piercing rounds that could penetrate through PA armored vehicles, but there is no such armor-piercing ammunition in the Jewish communities, and even the 7.62 weapons that have been selected for them jam up almost universally. So in every stage, Jewish defenses have been picked to set up a back-door option for their easy removal.”
Sones concluded: “The eviction and attack plans have one key vulnerability, however: The complex plans to abandon/evict Judea and Samaria’s Jews depend on secrecy to succeed.
“If the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria prepare to conduct an effective self-defense, and stay alert for a sudden Israeli abandonment, such a collapse can be prevented. The PA would then be forced to mount a sustained attack against a determined defense.”
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From Frontline News, here.
