Nationalistic "price-tag" acts continue to play a part in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Earlier this week, we saw yet another example: the vandalism of a monastery near Beit Shemesh, the latest in a string of such incidents.
The immediate cost is in the already volatile field. Quiet areas are whipped up and new foci of conflict are created. The complicated security operations in Judea and Samaria are based on checks and balances and on preserving quiet and a daily routine in as many areas as possible, while aiming military efforts at places prone to trouble. The price-tag incidents undermine by definition Israel's ability to keep things quiet in the region, but they also carry a much wider cost.
Israel has one of the best armies and intelligence forces in the world, but dealing with the youth responsible for price-tag attacks is a different story. Any successes in countering them are neither known nor felt. The lack of a government response to the activity is particularly worrying: 84 percent of price-tag cases are closed because the perpetrator is not found or because there is not enough evidence to try them. Only 8.5% of cases led to indictments.
Everyone is dumbfounded: The citizens of Israel, the Palestinians and the other Arabs, the nations of the world -- they all witness the phenomenon and cannot understand. Do the attacks persist because of a lack of professional or operational capability to stop them? Is it a weak will or just flawed priorities? Is there support for price-tag attacks? All these possibilities carry the same grave impact for Israeli diplomacy. The wonder and confusion develop over time into lack of faith. Lack of faith on this sensitive matter is created gradually, quietly, and flames up during a general, wider crisis. Likewise, the lack of a response damages the government's deterrent capabilities, at least on this front.
To this must be added the symbolic angle, the most significant for many throughout the world. The State of Israel rules -- and is therefore responsible for -- the Holy Land, the most holy place in the world to the three monotheistic religions. So this string of violent acts has grave international consequences for the long term that go far beyond the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Experience has taught us that the government has the tools to root out incidents like these, if it prepares itself legally, administratively, and operationally. There is no place to point out the "guilt" of any official body. Brushing off violent acts and being satisfied with condemnations shows an evasion of responsibility for stopping them.
Price-tag events are growing more common and their ramifications spill over beyond the here and now. When faced with a strategic threat, the responsibility for its repercussions falls on the government, and mainly on the person who leads it.
Amir Moran is a former senior official in the Shin Bet and currently a board member of the Council for Peace and Security.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו