The violence of the second intifada had ebbed and flowed over one and a half years. During this time, the Sharon government had developed a plan, called “Operation Defensive Shield”. This operation’s stated goal was to “wipe out terrorist networks.” The actual operation involved the near-total destruction of the Palestinian governmental and civilian infrastructure.

On March 27, 2002, during the Jewish holiday of Passover, a suicide bomber entered a hotel in the Israeli town of Netanya. The explosion killed the bomber and 29 Israelis, wounding 150 others. This atrocity provided Sharon with the excuse he needed to execute Operation Defensive Shield. Calling up many of its reserve units, Israel launched the invasion of the West Bank two days later.

Many thousands of Palestinians were arrested, but the longer-range goals were accomplished with ferocity. Governmental buildings, communications stations, water treatment facilities, and radio and television stations were damaged or destroyed. Civilian and governmental records and databases were destroyed or taken back to Israel. The West Bank was carved up into four sections. In short, what little institutional, civil or governmental infrastructure the Palestinians had managed to assemble was gone.

Palestinian youth throw stones at an armored, weaponized Israeli bulldozer

There were two other key outcomes of Operation Defensive Shield that we will look at here. One was the virtual imprisonment of Yasir Arafat in his compound, the Muqata, in the city of Ramallah. Several militants wanted by Israel had taken refuge in the compound, and Israel would not let Arafat out unless he surrendered them. He eventually did comply, surrendering the wanted men to Americans who imprisoned them in Jericho and costing Arafat even more respect in the Palestinian street. Though the siege was then lifted, Arafat’s movements, for the remainder of his days, would be severely restricted by both Israel and his own fear of departing a place and not being allowed to return. Sharon might not have been able to fulfill his ambition to kill Arafat, but he had severely crippled him as a leader, both in practice and prestige.

The second notorious outcome of Operation Defensive Shield was the battle in the Jenin refugee camp. When Israeli forces entered most Palestinian cities, there was only sparse resistance, as the force Israel could marshal was typically overwhelming. Only in Nablus had there been any truly notable fighting, but since no Israelis were killed it didn’t make headlines (the deaths of some 80 Palestinians passed, as they often do, without much notice in the West). But in Jenin, numerous Palestinian militant groups had come together to prepare the camp by fortifying and booby-trapping it. The Israeli forces were unprepared for the level of resistance they met and fighting in the camp went on for three days. With media being barred from the camp, no one really knew what was happening inside and the specter of Sabra and Shatilla was raised.

In the aftermath of Jenin, the focus came on to the use of the word “massacre” to describe what had happened in the camp. This thoroughly obscured the matter. While this semantic debate went on, focus was lost on the fact that the bloody battle had cost the lives of 52 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers. Of the Palestinians, between 22 and 25 of the dead were unarmed civilians, including women, children, disabled and elderly people. Meeting the heavy resistance, Israel had brought in bulldozers and began leveling houses, sometimes with occupants still inside. It mostly escaped notice that Sharon, nicknamed “the Bulldozer” had guided a hauntingly similar operation in Qibya nearly half a century before.