The Tel Aviv stabbing attack could not have been prevented. "Lone wolf" attacks have and remain the Israeli security establishment's greatest challenge: how to get into the mind of a person who does not share his or her plans with anyone and stop them before they arrive at their intended target. But Wednesday's attack in Tel Aviv could have been disrupted. During questioning by the Shin Bet, the terrorist said he woke up Wednesday morning at his home in a refugee camp in Tulkarem and entered Israel as an illegal worker. He brought his knife from Tulkarem and used it to carry out his attack, which despite his ideological difference, looked like it was from an Islamic State instructional video. It must be reiterated: A terrorist left Tulkarem and got into Israel freely, in broad daylight. He used a central route, armed with a knife, and no one stood in his way. And this happened in Israel, the champion of thwarting terrorist attacks. Israel? More like Chelm in this case. More than 40,000 illegal workers enter and exit Israel every day. They operate with known methods, are picked up at familiar locations by vehicles that coordinate ahead of time. And they work for employers who are largely known as well. The authorities are aware of this phenomenon, and in some cases they are familiar with the illegal workers personally, yet still do very little about it, too little. Some will quickly rise up to say that most of the illegal workers have nothing to do with terrorism, that they are just looking for a way to make a decent living for their families. The problem is that this unsupervised platform can be used by hostile entities -- as it was on Wednesday -- to enter Israel and carry out attacks. The security establishment recommended something be done about this a long time ago, and it suggested increasing the number of work permits and making the illegal workers legal, while blocking off all the illegal entry passages into Israel. The problem is that those recommendations are stuck in limbo, and the security barrier is now riddled with holes. The number of work permits will not rise in light of the Israel's disconnect with the Palestinian Authority and especially not after a terrorist attack. But there are also other issues -- budget related and in some cases politically related, that prevent the completion of the security fence and the fixing of sections that have been damaged. The result is an illegal worker highway and ongoing security threat. When you add to that the overt hostility to the Palestinian Authority and the atmosphere of incitement on the Palestinian street, you get the expected response: a rise in the number of terrorist attacks and a fear of "copy cats" who will wake up one morning and, seeing how easy it is, go out and stab Israelis.
