De-Weaponizing Palestinians

"We want to get to the point where there will not be a single weapon in the West Bank. Our logic is simple, the illegal weapons industry is one of the enablers of attacks."
"There's a lot of money in making guns. Maybe it's for the money; maybe it's ideological."
"I don't care. Guns kill."
(anonymous) senior Israeli commander

Washington Post photo by William Booth     Israeli forces raid a metal-working shop they say was used to manufacture crude submachine guns in the Palestinian town of Azzun in the Israeli-occupied West Bank early on the morning of Oct. 10,

"There has been an increase in security operations in and around the West Bank area to try and find factories where the weapons are made.” 
"[Palestinians have used them ['Carlos' guns] in a number of terrorist attacks over the past few months."
"[In February, Palestinian attackers used a ‘Carlo’ to kill a young policewoman in Jerusalem]."
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld

In Tel Aviv in June two Palestinians dressed innocuously like businessmen in jackets and ties opened fire at a trendy open-air food and shopping mall. The Arab gunmen managed to kill four Israelis as a special package deal in celebration of Ramadan. Another six Israelis were wounded, four of them critically. And although Hamas didn't take credit for the atrocity, they expressed their pride and approval in glowing terms.

Security camera video illuminated what had occurred. The terrorists were equipped with what has been named Carlo-style submachine guns, weapons that are more or less homemade by metalworking shops in the West Bank where machinists work on the manufacture of the guns, producing barrels, receivers and additional components to complete the production of a Carlo, named after the Swedish Carl Gustav m/45.

Two attackers are now in custody, say police  AFP

The surveillance footage highlighted the slaughter as it transpired, and showed one of the guns losing its ammunition clip, with the attacker hurrying to recover his bullets while the second weapon held by the companion assailant jammed. The terrorist tosses his jammed weapon off on the ground in disgust. As faulty as these machine guns are, they are deadly, and it is in the obvious interests of security and safety that Israeli police and military focus on removing them from action.

For one thing, lacking firearms in the West Bank results in Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians and soldiers resulteting through the use of knives, and family vehicles driven to ram into pedestrians with the intention of maiming and better yet, killing. These methods, however, are less efficient at murder than the use of guns. And for the most part the young Palestinian men and women who venture to kill with knives are more often shot dead themselves at the scene, or wounded and taken into custody.

A member of the Palestinian security forces displays weapons at a police station in the West Bank city of Nablus , that the police found on August 21, 2016, during an ongoing house to house search operation for gunmen who are on the police search list. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

With the freer availability of guns that would obviously change dramatically. At the present time a homemade version of a submachine gun has a selling price of around $500. These weapons are often used by Palestinians for the purpose of self-defence when facing clan feuds, and alternately by criminals in defence of their territory. However, with those weapons in hand and more readily accessed, it is clear enough that the epidemic of attacks would be more successful in killing Israelis were attackers to be armed with guns.

As it is, the Israeli military has recognized an increase in gun attacks, with 22 major assaults with the use of firearms in the past year. The most recent one occurred in Jerusalem with the assailant in possession of an M-16-style weapon, not a crude Carlo. He managed to shoot six Israelis, killing a 60-year-old woman, and a 30-year-old Israeli policeman, and was himself killed by return fire. This was a Palestinian living in Israel, with all the perquisites of any other resident available to him.

His exploit and his 'martyrdom' have been celebrated by his family, his mother and his daughter among them, as a wonderful gift to the Palestinians, restoring their pride in the killing of two Israelis. The Palestinian Authority, known to incite Palestinians to regard the surrender of their lives to martyrdom in the great cause of 'resistance', that killing Israelis is a courageous act, has resulted in Palestinians eager to act on the honourable course of action, the killing of Jews.

In the space of the last year Israeli forces have been busy confiscating weapons and closing up workshops; 350 of the former and 35 of the latter. Because Palestinian ownership of guns is illegal, the West Bank stands out as uniquely deprived of cheap AK-47s and surplus M-16, so readily available elsewhere in the Middle East. Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are awash with AK-47s. The Palestinian Authority's preventive security forces have supplied Israeli authorities with intelligence relating to guns and those who manufacture them in the West Bank.

Several days ago, Israeli soldiers invaded the machine shop in Azzun, West Bank, to discover gun barrels and bullets, half-completed. Drill presses and lathes were dragged out of the shop by a crane and hauled off by the military. The shop's doors were welded shut, and the owner, Nazar Odey, who was later interrogated by the military, will no longer be able to retool brake drums, as advertised, having chosen the sideline of gun manufacturing.

The cost of the Carlo, despite its crude assemblage of various ill-fitting parts, is on the rise, going up to $1,000 to obtain. Reasonable for someone intent on acquiring one, in comparison to the $5,000 cost of a military-grade weapon from abroad like an M-16. Nazar Odey's neighbours professed surprise that the quiet, middle-aged man they were familiar with would risk his livelihood to produce guns.

The conclusion was that though he was not political, he was greedy, and selling a gun for $500 was a hefty bit of earnings, all the more so if he managed to produce ten or twenty of them.

Homemade guns, body armor and other equipment seized by IDF troops in the Palestinian village of al-Dik in an overnight raid on May 25, 2016. (IDF Spokesperson's Unit)