A moderate response, for now

It needs to be said in a straightforward manner: Israel does not have magic solutions to the problem of terrorist attacks. What we will see in the coming days is a little more than the norm, mostly in an effort to thwart additional attacks and restore the quiet on the ground.

The decisions made by the cabinet were minor, almost predictable. The main thrust: comprehensively revoking 204 Israeli work permits that had been issued to relatives of the terrorists from the village of Yatta, and reinstating restrictions that had been lifted for some 80,000 Palestinians during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (primarily in regard to family visits). The other decisions, chief among them to besiege Yatta and deploy reinforcements to Judea and Samaria in the form of two additional battalions, were already made on the night of the terrorist attack at Sarona market in Tel Aviv, to aid the investigation and to prevent an escalation on the ground.

Another decision that was made -- to finish building parts of the security fence in the South Hebron Hills region -- will need to be evaluated. This is the route allegedly taken by the terrorists on their way to Tel Aviv, and is also used by tens of thousands of other Palestinians who work in Israel illegally. This Achilles' heel has been well known for years and has been exploited in the past to commit terrorist attacks. Despite this (and government assurances notwithstanding), nothing has been done about it, and the fence was never completed. Along with the egregiously lax handling of the illegal resident phenomenon -- habitually a platform for terror -- Israel has essentially been performing upkeep on a permanent hole in its defenses, which again cost us in blood this week.

The backdrop to these aforementioned measures is the Israeli decision not to break the rules of the game. In recent months we have seen a drop in the number of terrorist attacks and an increase in the quality of cooperation with the Palestinian Authority. The concern is that responding too harshly will propel the West Bank into a new tailspin -- and during Ramadan no less. Therefore Israel has refrained from collectively punishing the Palestinian population; despite the burning anger, routine daily life in the territories will continue unabated.

These decisions stand in contrast to statements by several government ministers (some of them cabinet members), who created lofty and unnecessary expectations regarding a tough Israeli response. It was actually in the IDF and Shin Bet where cooler heads prevailed -- backed by the prime minister and defense minister, who left aside his public image and was all business -- knowing they would have to stop the flame from spreading like wildfire. If this is indeed the beginning of a new terror wave, it is unclear if and for how long Netanyahu and Lieberman can sustain their policy of restraint. The significance of their decisions, however, is that for now they clearly prioritize maintaining the calm and avoiding an escalation.

In the meantime, the investigation into the attack is ongoing. The terrorists' relatives apparently told the PA they had gone missing, but the PA failed to take the reports seriously -- due to both the relatively short amount of time they were unaccounted for and because of the abundance of similar reports by anxious parents who fear their missing children intend to carry out terrorist attacks. The Shin Bet, meanwhile, did not have prior information, but it will have to go back and examine whether it could have identified clues pointing to an attack -- the gun purchase and illegal entry into Israel, along with a connection (if there is one) to Hamas. These details are important for reconstructing the attack and for preventing the next one, under the assumption that any terrorist attack can produce copycats seeking to perpetrate something similar.

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