In terrorist incidents, like on the battlefield, Israelis should try to get their hands on the enemy. It's not always possible. It doesn't always work. Certainly not when civilians, rather than trained soldiers, are the ones involved. The two bloody events in Tel Aviv and Gush Etzion on Thursday ended not only in five terrible tragedies, but in a disappointing result, since the murderers remained alive. Attackers must not in any circumstances be hurt after they are captured or surrender, but we should seek to end things before that. My psychologist mother, Ora, who passed away 30 years ago, explained it this way: It's not a matter of avenging ourselves on the enemy or punishing him, but rather creating a result his partners on the path of terror will agree is an undesirable one. Since the stabbing intifada began, plenty of attacks have concluded with satisfactory results. But after the way things turned out on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces and the Border Police must take into account the possibility that Palestinian terrorists are trying to change the final equation. They should be taken out before that happens. There are two schools of thought on how to deal with the problem. One is the perception that constantly demands the use of greater force, from Operation Protective Edge to the demand to place Judea and Samaria under a total closure and limit the number of Palestinian laborers allowed to enter Israel. The other one, which Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and IDF Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot espouse, seeks to distinguish between terrorism and the broad Palestinian population that makes a living in the Jewish sector. So far, the moderate conservative approach has proved itself on the balance sheet, which admittedly has not been free from mistakes. It seems to me the right thing to do is continue along this path, because trapping all the legal workers inside Nablus and Jenin and Jericho will fire up the Palestinian population. Not only will it not quell the flames, it will do the opposite. A step like that will eventually cost us. But three qualifications to that statement must be made: • There are watershed moments in which even a conservative approach to a serious problem requires a shock and awe response to quiet the enemy -- a surgical strike. Hebron should get a blow like that now, as short in duration as possible and far from any harm to the values that are holy to Islam. • The government should recognize that an intifada, a popular uprising, is underway and not lean on the smokescreen that this is just lone-wolf terrorism. Given that, it should make new rules until the crisis passes. Anyone who listened to the people speaking on behalf of the French government, which is center-liberal, heard that France intends to take harsh steps both against the terrorists who have gained a foothold in Paris and against anyone who is helping them by providing shelter, on social media, or by publishing facts that hinder the war on the Islamic State group. If our attorney general were to ask for similar authority, the far Left in the Knesset would declare all-out war on him. • Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is not interested in peace. He also has no authority to make peace. But the lie that the Israeli and Palestinian people would be sitting together under a fig tree if the crimes of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hadn't been exposed has gained traction. That's a fraud. On the other hand, however, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has to present a working plan that will restore the world's faith that Israel seeks peace, even when it doesn't have a Palestinian partner.
