Israel was promised a peace partner. Now its military is being told to prepare for the possibility of fighting that partner’s armed forces in an all-out war. More than three decades after Oslo, that development deserves far more attention than another diplomatic statement about keeping the peace process alive.
On September 7, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had instructed the IDF to prepare for “all-out war” if Palestinian Authority security forces or associated bodies launch an October 7-style attack—or Israel knows with certainty that they are about to launch one—against Israeli forces and Jewish communities.
Consider what that means. The institution the world has treated as the foundation of a future Palestinian state now figures in Israeli military preparations as a potential source of the very nightmare Israelis vowed never to experience again.
The question practically asks itself: What happened to the promise of peace?
Oslo’s Unanswered Question
The Oslo process rested on an enormous gamble: that empowering Palestinian institutions, including armed security forces, would produce a dependable partner and greater security. Israelis were asked to accept tangible risks in exchange for promises about what those institutions would become.
Decades later, Katz is describing a potential campaign against PA officials, security structures, and terrorist infrastructure. His announced response would include evacuations from areas used to launch attacks and an ongoing IDF presence in evacuated territory.
This is a devastating challenge to the assumptions behind Oslo. If the institutions built to support peace could become the machinery of an assault, their diplomatic status offers Israeli families no protection.
Yet the international conversation repeatedly returns to Palestinian statehood as though recognition itself can resolve the security problem. A flag, a United Nations seat, and another round of solemn guarantees cannot answer the question that matters most: Who ensures those weapons never turn toward Israeli homes?
For Israelis, getting that answer wrong carries a price no foreign diplomat will personally pay.
var images = [],
index = 0;
images[0] = ““;
images[1] = ““;
images[2] = ““;
images[3] = ““;
index = Math.floor(Math.random() * images.length);
document.write(images[index]);
//done
The Threat Next Door
Americans can easily miss the geography behind this debate. Judea and Samaria—the biblical heartland commonly called the West Bank—are woven into a landscape where Israeli and Palestinian communities, roads, and strategic high ground sit in close proximity.
For Jewish families living there, the security debate concerns the road to school, the drive home from work, and whether help can arrive before attackers reach their neighborhood. Along the territory’s western edge lie communities close to Israel’s densely populated center. Jerusalem is directly entangled in that same geography.
