Israel just carried out its largest military operation in the West Bank since the peak years of the Second Intifada between 2002 and 2004. For some time now, Jenin, along with other areas in the West Bank, has become an area where the Palestinian Authority security forces choose not to venture. That is hardly good news for the Palestinian Authority (PA) or for Israel.
As the PA has become weaker, a vacuum has developed in the West Bank—and Iran, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad have rushed to fill it with money, arms, and explosives. The current Israeli operation is unlikely to change this reality in the West Bank; even leaders of the Israeli security establishment acknowledge that without the PA security forces reasserting themselves, the most that this operation will buy is a few months.