Liberman’s punishment strategy brings an end to West Bank calm
The plan by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman to punish West Bank villages from which Palestinian assailants originate provokes anger and frustration amid the local population.
Is Israel on the brink of a new wave of terror? According to senior Palestinian security officials, the writing was on the wall from the minute Avigdor Liberman assumed office in late May as Israel’s defense minister and dictated a carrot-and-stick policy of rewards and punishments for Palestinian villages, depending on the origins of Palestinian assailants.
Following five months of relative calm, 10 terror attacks and attempted terror attacks occurred in the past week. On Sept. 19, adjacent to Herod’s Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, a youth from East Jerusalem's Ras al-Amoud neighborhood stabbed and wounded a policewoman and a soldier. The policewoman sustained serious wounds, while the soldier was moderately injured.
