Speaking at a policy conference on Monday, the Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon said that Israel's "interest is to separate the general Palestinian population from those involved in terrorism." This statement, of course, stands at the core of all anti-guerrilla and counterterror operational thinking. If a country fighting terrorists cannot reduce support for them among those who surround them, then a country will doom itself to fighting a never ending war.
General Ya'alon noted the economic devastation that the Palestinian terror war has wrought on the general Palestinian population. Repeated suicide attacks at the Erez Industrial Park, where 4,000 Gazans worked each day to support some 35,000 people, forced Israel to close the park. This week's attack against an IDF outpost on the border between Gaza and Egypt forced the army to close the border-crossing terminal, preventing Gazans from conducting business in Egypt. Suicide bombers disguised as ordinary workers have forced Israel to stringently limit the number of Palestinians working in Israel and to erect roadblocks throughout Judea and Samaria.
Israel has, over the past four years, and indeed since the first Palestinian suicide bomber introduced himself to Israeli civilians back in 1994, tried to develop methods of screening cargo and workers that would make Palestinian economic activity possible while preventing the infiltration of human bombs. Additionally, as Ya'alon noted, Israel has worked to ensure that the health and education systems in Judea, Samaria and Gaza have continued to operate. This, in spite of the fact that terrorists have hidden in maternity and cancer wards from Bethlehem to Jenin and that the Palestinian school system teaches children that their life goal should be to become a suicide bomber.
Yet, in spite of all of Israel's attempts to separate the broader Palestinian population from the terrorists, enabling to formore to carry on with their lives while combating the latter, Ya'alon admitted that support for the terrorists among the Palestinian rank and file has not waned, nor has enthusiasm for terrorism in general. In his words, IDF counterterror operations over the past two years "have decreased the ability, not the motivation" of Palestinians to carry out attacks against Israelis.
And so it can be said that the IDF, and Israel as a whole, have failed in the mission of separating the general Palestinian population from those involved in terrorism.