The return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan raises concerns in Israel that a similar process might happen in the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority controls part of the West Bank. There have been problematic relations between Israel and the PA since 1993, when it was established. The connection between the two has vacillated between hostility and cooperation over the years.
In the last decade, Israel and the PA managed to avoid a showdown and even built a very effective security detente against their common enemy, Hamas. Without Israeli assistance, the PA would collapse. This could resemble what happened in Afghanistan, where the local government crumbled after the US exit.
Israel needs to be ready if the PA collapses. The PA, just like the Afghan government, is already fragile for several reasons, such as corruption, mismanagement and lack of public trust. There is also the ongoing uncertainty of when the 85-year-old head of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, can no longer run its operations.
Israel can’t choose who would replace him. In 1982, Israel tried but failed to put in power a pro-Israeli leader in Lebanon. Israel should let the PA decide who will lead it and hope that they will be a moderate. However, rival factions in the PA might fight with each other, including with force. The Palestinian security forces might fall apart. Chaos in the West Bank would put Israelis at risk.
On August 30, Defense Minister Benny Gantz expressed his support for strengthening the PA. Israel can try to improve its relations with the PA. The Israeli government, for political reasons, can’t negotiate a long-term solution to the conflict. However, an effort could be made, to increase the chances that the Palestinian security forces hold on, even if there is turmoil in the PA.
During a severe crisis in the PA, the Palestinian security forces would have to be strong enough to enforce law and order and to suppress Hamas. The latter, like the Taliban, would try to exploit its enemy’s low point. In Afghanistan, the crisis happened following the US withdrawal, which could have been executed better, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, the Afghan military and police failed completely. Clearly, they were not well-trained and organized to fight absent significant US support.
Israel has no plans to leave the West Bank. The IDF will stay there, but it still needs the Palestinian security forces. Israel and the PA can learn from Afghanistan about how to build local security forces that can function under pressure, and in uncertain circumstances. Israel and other states can help the Palestinian security forces. However, there is an ongoing concern that providing them with weapons and equipment might backfire, if this arsenal ever ends up in the hands of an enemy, similar to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, all the major and costly investments in the Afghan military and police proved to be a failure. Perhaps a focus on moral, discipline and mental fitness, and improvements to unit cohesion would have changed the outcome. These are lessons for the IDF with respect to the Palestinian security forces. Their men have also to be paid well, and given a decent standard of living. Such an approach could be effective and safer for Israel, instead of upgrading the Palestinian security forces with more weapons, which thereafter pose a danger if they end up in the hands of Hamas.
Israel would not allow Hamas to grab any territory in the West Bank. If the Palestinian security forces would not be able to function well and PA has a meltdown, Israel will act. The IDF will move quickly to capture the entire West Bank, before Hamas can seize it and create a base there to attack Israel. Israel wants to prevent a crisis like the one that occurred in the past, in 2002. The West Bank turned then into a springboard for launching terrorist attacks against Israelis, so the IDF recaptured Palestinian cities.
Israel already experienced what could happen in the West Bank. In 2007, Hamas took the Gaza Strip by force, toppling an ill-prepared PA that ruled the Gaza Strip at the time. Israel withdrew from most of the Gaza Strip in 1994. The rest of that area was evacuated in 2005. Hamas used this opportunity in 2007, and yet the IDF did not respond by rushing to the Gaza Strip and crushing Hamas. Israel chose not to because it was reluctant to face, again, the prospects of managing that hornet nest.
In 2007, Israel could have tried to keep the PA in charge of the Gaza Strip. In this respect, Israel chose to remain neutral as to the fight between the PA and Hamas. In retrospect, this might have been a serious mistake, considering all the clashes and wars with Hamas that have since transpired. Therefore, Israel would be unlikely to now allow Hamas to also take the West Bank.
For lack of a better option, Israel had to tolerate Hamas as the ruler of the Gaza Strip. Hamas is contained and isolated there, much like the Taliban could be with respect to Afghanistan in the future. Nevertheless, Hamas and the Taliban are well-armed. Hamas has its rockets and missiles, while the Taliban acquired the arsenal of the Afghan military.
All in all, Israel can take the lesson from Afghanistan and choose to assist the PA and its security forces as a means of preventing Hamas from seizing portions of the West Bank.
The writer served in the IDF and worked as a researcher for the Defense Ministry. He has a Ph.D and he has published six books in the US and UK. https://shop.harvard.com/search/site/ehud+eilam His latest book is Containment in the Middle East (University Press of Nebraska, 2019).