Hunting Hamas: Israel's Dangerous Game
Updated: 2:38pm UK, Monday 16 June 2014
By Tom Rayner, Middle East Reporter, Jerusalem
In the intense hunt for three kidnapped teenagers, Israel has spared nothing, rounding up more than 150 Palestinians in a wave of night raids and deploying hundreds of troops across the West Bank.
But it is playing a dangerous game.
Prime Minister Netanyahu says he knows 'for a fact' that the Gaza-based Hamas are behind the kidnapping of 16 year-olds Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaar and 19 year-old Eyal Yifrach.
The operation to find the teenagers has taken on a deeply political character - with leaders and members of Hamas making up the majority of those so far detained.
For Mr Netanyahu, this incident is proof of the error made by the West in its readiness to accept the recently-announced Palestinian unity government, which saw the Hamas back an effort by President Abbas' Fatah faction to end the rift between the West Bank and Gaza.
But while Israel's military insist the operation is focused on the 'task at hand' - finding those who've been kidnapped - it is clear the Israeli government sees this as a political opportunity too.
By taking out the Hamas leadership, through arrests in the West Bank, and through airstrikes in Gaza, they are pursuing two goals.
The first, to strike a blow at the organisation's ability to operate and emphasise its 'terrorist' character by the de-facto criminalisation of its detained members.
The second, to pre-empt the potential for the missing teenagers being used as bargaining chips in negotiations to release Palestinian prisoners - every arrest made during the operation, dilutes the impact of a prisoner exchange.
But with the first Palestinian deaths connected to the search operation occurring overnight, during unrest sparked by Israeli raids in Ramallah and Jenin, the tensions and the stakes are rising.
If, as the Israeli authorities have claimed, they have a track record of foiling such kidnap attempts in the past – then it seems the number of arrests made so far either represents a gross intelligence failure, or a form of collective punishment.
Making Hamas pay for a crime they've been accused of may make sense in the Israeli mind-set, but unleashing a military operation inevitably impacts the lives of civilians living in and around them.
In Hebron, the most populous Palestinian city in the West Bank if you do not include East Jerusalem, road blocks and checkpoints have blocked and restricted all access in and out..
Given the Palestinian security apparatus is in fact co-operating with the search effort, the sense that those representing them are party to the repression will only fuel the sense of disenfranchisement and push normal Palestinians towards extreme positions.
Equally, the rhetoric being used by Netanyahu may fulfil his need to show strength, but it also risks inciting retribution by Jewish extremists.
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the kindling is always there.
With the resentment, fear and anger that is building up on both sides, it would take very little to spark something much more dangerous.
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