Shin Bet: Palestinian truce main cause for reduced terror

[Tom Joad]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/664959.html
.....
Drop in terror is due to truce with militants

The Shin Bet's statistics on terror attacks confirm the public perception that terrorist activity in 2005 dropped considerably compared to the previous four and a half years. The main reason for the sharp decline is the truce in the territories, the security service said Sunday.

Terrorist attacks claimed the lives of 45 Israelis last year, compared to 117 in 2004, marking a 60 percent reduction.
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Five suicide bombings took place this year - two in Netanya, one in Hadera, one in Tel Aviv and one, with no fatalities, in Be'er Sheva - compared to only two in 2004. The number of fatalities resulting from these attacks has risen a little, from 14 to 21.

But the main reason for the reduction in terrorist acts over the past year is the truce in the territories, as partial as it may be. The fact that Hamas, in general, stopped engaging in terror activities changed the picture. The Islamic Jihad network in the West Bank upgraded its capability and was responsible for the murder of 23 Israelis in 2005, but during that time, Hamas - the leading terror orgnanization in recent years - has scaled back its engagement in terror. Its focus on the political arena and the preparations for the Palestinian parliamentary elections have limited its active involvement in terror to a large extent.

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This commentary (excerpt here) accompanied this report in full at http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_240.shtml

JPN Commentary: For many years, peace movements have been virtually shouting that the way to decrease the violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories is for Palestinians to be given reason to desist from such attacks. While the Israeli government, whether controlled by Labor or Likud, along with the United States and the so-called "mainstream" Jewish organizations have insisted that peace can only come when the violence stops, peace groups, and most analysts worth their salt, have realized the obvious--that it is peace that ends the violence, a peace that is not imposed by the strong on the weak but one that offers justice and hope for all concerned.

This is not the first time the Israeli military or security establishment has issued a report that bolsters our claim, but it is the first time that such a report also includes the ineffectiveness of the wall that Israel is building in the West Bank. Israel's General Security Services, the Shin Bet, issued a report today that fatalities among Israelis were down by 60% (dropping from 117 to 45) in 2005 and injuries down by 30% (they do not give the raw number), and the main reason for this was the truce declared by Hamas last January. That truce ended yesterday.

While both Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade were inconsistent in abiding by the truce, Hamas did stick with it, and the other groups did at least reduce their activities as a result of the truce declaration. It should also be noted (and it is not in any of the reports I have yet seen about the Shin Bet statistics) that, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and B'Tselem, Palestinian injuries and deaths declined even more steeply in 2005. According to B'Tselem, 190 Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in 2005, down from 822 in 2004, a reduction of nearly 77%. The PRCS reports 2005 injuries to Palestinians totaling 986, a major (75%) drop from the 2004 total of 4009. One can only hope that the armed Palestinian groups look at these statistics and consider carefully whether they really wish to escalate violence back to the bloody levels seen for most of the second intifada.

The Shin Bet report didn't even mention the wall as a contributing factor because, as most sensible people and all the peace groups predicted from the outset, Palestinians wishing to commit attacks have found ways around or through the wall.
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Final comments:
The wall ain't worth nothin' in stopping attacks on Israel. It's value is in redefining the map of Israel.
"On December 1, news reports quoted Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Minister of Justice, as saying that the future borders of Israel will roughly follow the route of the wall. This statement by an Israeli public official was the first to explicitly link the route of the wall with Israel’s political, not security, aims.

Real security for Israel can only be gained when the occupation ends, when there is an end to dispossessing Palestinians of their land and homes.

[eyl]

1. We already discused this when

the original article regarding the drop in casualties came out.

The truce began in February 2005. Since then, there has indeed been a drop in attacks. However, there has been a drop in Israeli casualties starting with Defensive Shield in March 2002, whih increased after the beginning of the construction of the barrier in 2003. In addition, the location of attacks shifted; most of them tended to be where the barier wasn't complete.

IOW, in 2004 you have a drop due to the barrier; in 2005, you have a further drop due to the truce. To put in another way, the drop in 2004 is due to the barrier; the drop in 2005 is barrier+truce, but the barrier wasn't mentioned in the article because it's not a new factor (the Shabak didn't state that the barrier was ineffective). If the barrier was not effective, the level of casualties from April 2002 till February 2005 should have remained roughly constant rather than dropping significantly.

I should note that Avi Dichter (head of the Shabak until 2005) credited the barrier with stopping quite a few terrorist attacks, including a planned attack on a school in Yoqneam.