Bennett: I’ll keep backing IDF operations in entire West Bank

Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Thursday that Israeli security forces must continue to operate across the West Bank, including in areas under full Palestinian Authority control, and vowed to continue backing their freedom of operation even if threatened with losing his ministerial position.

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to fire Bennett, who heads the Orthodox-nationalist Jewish Home party, in a row at the security cabinet over the issue.

Bennett’s comments came amid recent reports on negotiations for a change in the status quo of Area A — regions of the West Bank that are under full control of the Palestinian Authority yet where the IDF continues to operate when judged necessary.

In a post in Hebrew on his Facebook page that included an image of himself in IDF uniform, Bennett said that operating in the heart of the West Bank prevents attackers from reaching Israel.

“When you catch a terrorist at three in the morning in Nablus, you prevent an explosion at three in the afternoon in a Tel Aviv cafe,” he wrote.

“Today as a member of the security cabinet I will continue to make every effort on behalf of continued IDF operations in every place they are needed, even if I am chastised for it or I am threatened with being fired,” Bennett declared. “The safety of Israeli citizens is more important than all.”

Last week, after discussing the issue with the security cabinet, Netanyahu similarly said that the IDF would maintain the right to operate in Area A according to “operational needs.”

The majority of Palestinians live in Area A, mostly within city centers, which is under complete PA administration as set out the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Israel and the PA have in recent months been negotiating over a change in the status quo for Area A. The IDF began to operate there during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 — a massive Israeli military campaign to quash terrorism during the Second Intifada — and has continued to do so since

While the prime minister has rejected the idea that the IDF would completely cease operations in Area A — an idea that was also opposed by the Shin Bet — it remains possible the Israeli army could limit its operations in mostly Palestinian areas.

“We must not give up on that freedom of operation that we obtained at such a heavy price during operation Defensive Shield,” Bennett said, noting that he learned the importance of having full access to all areas when he participated in the campaign as a reservist soldier.

“During Defensive Shield I learned: Only when the IDF and the Shin Bet are free to act, to gather intelligence, and to nip terror in the bud, is it possible to prevent bomb attacks in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem,” he wrote.

The minister cautioned against relying on the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas or the security forces he controls to prevent terrorists from attacking Israel.

“We must not believe that the people of Abu Mazen’s [Abbas’s] Palestinian Authority will protect us,” Bennett said, recalling an incident in September 2000 in which an Israeli border policeman was shot dead when a Palestinian mob sacked the Jewish shrine of Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, an enclave to which Israelis had access despite it being under Palestinian control.

“Only the soldiers of the IDF and the Shin Bet agents can protect us,” Bennett said.

This week marks 14 years since the operation, which followed dozens of Palestinian suicide bomb and terror attacks against Israelis. The operation was finally launched after a Hamas suicide bomber struck at a Passover seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya, killing 30 people and injuring 140 others.

An Israeli-PA discussion about halting IDF operations across Area A followed the rejection by the Palestinians in March of an Israeli offer to cease military operations in Ramallah and Jericho, and a subsequent evaluation of whether it could then extend this policy to other West Bank cities.

Haaretz reported last month that Israel had proposed to halt operations in the two West Bank cities, except in cases in which a terrorist attack was thought imminent.