JERUSALEM — For a country that prides itself on having developed the means to suppress a spectrum of threats, ranging from Iranian ballistic missiles to suicide bombers, it wasn't easy for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a nationally televised press conference Thursday, to concede there's no "magic solution" to the ad hoc assailants that have killed five and injured scores in a weeklong wave of so-called lone wolf terror attacks.
Sandwiched between his civilian and military security chiefs after a day marred by seven attacks that stretched from Jerusalem to points north and south — including downtown Tel Aviv — Netanyahu sought to reassure his audience that security forces were doing "everything, but everything, in order to return the sense of security."
Netanyahu said the Israeli military, the Shin Bet security agency and the Israel Police are operating on all fronts, including ambushes, undercover operations, arrests, fortified presence on the roads, security for settlements, operational entry into Palestinian cities of the West Bank, and penetration into Arab Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
He also said he is forbidding Jewish as well as Arab members of the Knesset and public figures to ascend East Jerusalem's holy Temple Mount in order to calm tensions on both sides.
But the Israeli premier reserved the bulk of blame for Palestinian authorities in Gaza and in Ramallah, whom he accused of inciting the assaults through unfounded rumors regarding the delicate status quo on the Temple Mount, the site in Jerusalem's Old City that is holy to the world's three monotheistic religions.
"We're in the midst of a wave of terror from knives, fire bombs, rocks and even live fire. Most of these activities are not organized, but they are all a result of wild and slanderous incitement from Hamas, from the Palestine Authority and from a few countries in this region.
"I must tell you, citizens of Israel, that we live in the Middle East, where the flames of Islamic extremism that are enflaming the region are reaching us as well. But Israel is strong, Israelis are strong.
"The methods I've outlined won't work immediately and there is no magic solution. But through persistence, thoroughness and resolve, we will prove that terror doesn't pay."
Email: bopallrome@defensenews.com
Twitter: @OpallRome
Opall-Rome is Israel bureau chief for Defense News. She has been covering U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation, Mideast security and missile defense since May 1988. She lives north of Tel Aviv. Visit her website at www.opall-rome.com.
