Israel Marks 20 Years Since Operation Defensive Shield, But Has Nation Learned Its Lesson?

On 29 March 2002, Israel launched a full-scale military campaign in the West Bank. The goal was to arrest terrorists and destroy their facilities and infrastructure. Beyond that the Jewish state also wanted to explain its stance to the world and win over the support of the international community.

March 2002 was probably one of the bloodiest months in Israel's history. These were the days of the second Intifada and Palestinian terrorist attacks were so common that they took place on a nearly daily basis.

Some of those attacks were exceptionally deadly and are still engraved in the minds of many. One of them that occurred in Jerusalem's Beit Yisrael neighbourhood, where scores of women and children had gathered in front of a synagogue, claimed the lives of ten people. Another one took place in a buzzing cafe in the disputed city, killing 11 and injuring 54 others. The bloodiest one happened at the end of the month at the Park Hotel in Netanya, central Israel, where a Palestinian extremist detonated himself, murdering 30 people, 11 of whom were Holocaust survivors.

In total, during the month known as "Black March" more than a hundred civilians were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, roughly a quarter of the overall number of victims registered in 2002.

Explaining Israel's Position to the World

At the time, Miri Eisin, a retired IDF colonel, was serving in the country's military intelligence corps and she was asked to act as a spokesperson for the international media. She would be the one explaining Israel's position to the world.

"The violence was spiralling slowly, and March in that sense was horrible because it claimed the lives of so many people", she recalls.

IDF Soldiers in Nablus during operation Defense Shield

CC BY-SA 2.0 / Israel Defense Forces / IDF Soldiers in Nablus during operation Defense Shield

"So the general feeling was that that violence had to be stopped. And when the attack at Park Hotel happened, it triggered Israel's response", she added.

Two days after the deadly attack, on 29 March, Israel launched "Operation Defensive Shield", the largest military campaign in the West Bank since 1967.

The aim of the operation was straightforward. Then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wanted to "catch and arrest terrorists", their dispatchers, supporters, and donors. He also intended to confiscate their weapons, destroy their facilities, laboratories, training grounds, and production factories but urged the IDF to avoid civilian casualties or any harm to the local population.

While the military was following orders, Eisin's job was to communicate Israel's actions to the world.

"During that operation Israel did something that it has never done before - it established a media centre, which gave detailed briefings on what was going on. It outlined Israeli plans and targets but, at the same time, it exposed the involvement of the Palestinian Authority in terror, especially after the IDF got hold of documents that proved that link".

No More Money for Terror?

Those explanatory efforts bore fruit. Following the operation, the US - which gave the PA some $36 million in 1994, when it was first established - significantly cut its aid, transferring only $20 million. The Americans, traumatised by the events of 9/11, realised that their economic aid might be used for funding extremists, and this was something they wanted to avoid.

Other international donors also started to scrutinise their assistance to the PA and began paying extra attention to where the money was going and what goals it was serving.

But while Israel's advocacy efforts were effective when it came to politicians and decision-makers, the general European public was not that impressed, especially given that the international media was packed with reports about Israeli soldiers purportedly persecuting Palestinians, hampering their daily lives, and depriving them of their basic rights.

A masked Palestinian boy looks on as Hamas militant take part in a protest over the possible eviction of several Palestinian families from homes on land claimed by Jewish settlers in the Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, in the northern Gaza Strip May 7, 2021

© REUTERS / MOHAMMED SALEM

Eisin acknowledges that during Operation Defensive Shield Israel did make mistakes in the way it presented the operation.

"In Israel, we have a tendency to look at everything through the prism of security. We overlook the civilian aspect, and this poses a problem for the international community that views the situation from the perspective of freedom and human rights".

Twenty years after that full-scale operation, Israel, says Eisin, still hasn't learned how to bridge the widening gap, and decision-makers in Jerusalem are still at a loss over how to win the support of the general public.

"There is nothing that we can do. Those, who are with us, will stay with us. Those, who are against us, will remain against us. But the majority of people, who are in the middle, do not have an opinion and we need to watch out because they might end up not choosing us".

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