Defense Minister Israel Katz has declared open season on IDF Central Command Chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth and much of the already weakened efforts to restrain Jewish extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
After tying Bluth’s hands on the issue once in January 2025, the defense minister is now threatening to tie them even more just as the Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank is hitting some of its worst levels.
The public attack was a barely veiled leak by Katz or his staff to Arutz 7 on July 21 accusing Bluth of being overly aggressive in cracking down on Jewish extremist violence.
Bluth’s first job is to thwart Palestinian terror and, while there is more work to be done in that area, he has been the most aggressive central commander on that playing field since the end of the Second Intifada in 2005.
He has also more actively helped with the expansion of the settlement enterprise through Israeli domestic legal channels than any of his recent predecessors.
Bluth held back due to decision ending detention for Jews
However, in his secondary role in helping the police and the Shin Bet restrain violent Jewish extremists, Bluth himself has been held back due to Katz’s January 2025 decision to end administrative detention for Jews, while continuing it for over 3,200 Palestinians, some of them for years.
There were never many Jews in administrative detention, and they were generally only held for three to six months at a time.
Sometimes there were zero, sometimes single digits, and essentially never more than very low double digits.
But Katz decided to end even the limited number of administrative detentions, instead encouraging rehabilitation and more indictments – though all signs are that it is extremely difficult to indict many of the Jews involved in extremist violence without blowing intelligence sources and methods – the same reason administrative detention is used for Palestinians.
Since January 2025, there have been ups and downs, but overall the situation of Jewish extremist violence has deteriorated to new highs in attacks, mass attacks, and general chaos.
There is no evidence that Katz’s 19 months of rehabilitation efforts have achieved any real results.
Other more moderate efforts by Bluth and by Shin Bet Director David Zini have failed to rein in the wave of Jewish extremist violence.
They have tried passing laws to outlaw face-coverings and to make it easier to give electronic ankle cuffs to certain suspects, pre-conviction, but both of these tools have relatively easy workarounds.
Instead, in recent months, Bluth has started to use more restraining orders, which prohibit certain individuals from entering Judea and Samaria.
This has been a traditional tool always used by IDF central commanders, though it has always been considered less powerful and effective than administrative detention.
Bluth’s growing use of this medium-effective tool could never be as effective as administrative detention, but is clearly having some impact on the violent Jewish extremists, as they have tripled their public social media campaign against him.
Restraining orders necessitated, inability to use administrative detention
On July 19, Bluth even made a speech talking about the need to use the restraining orders tool, and not-so-veiled, complaining about the inability to use administrative detention.
Whether responding to Bluth or to those supporting the Jewish extremists, Katz’s leak to Arutz 7 saying that he would summon the IDF central commander for being too aggressive at a time when Jewish extremist violence is out of control puts the defense minister in a new category.
When Katz ignored recommendations by the IDF and the Shin Bet to keep administrative detention for Jews at the same levels it has been for many years, to push for more rehabilitation and indictments, one could have called it an experiment.
Maybe an ill-advised experiment going against expert advice, but theoretically his new strategy had a chance.
Yet, the results have been an unequivocal failure, which is not only leading to harm against innocent Palestinians, a problem on its own, but is also undermining Israel’s fundamental standing in both US Democrat and Republican circles.
The Trump administration does not care that much about what happens in the West Bank, but has numerous times condemned Israel’s slow and limited efforts to restrain Jewish extremist violence, including from top pro-Israel figures like Us Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
In the atmosphere of that utter failure of his idea and of the grave harm it is doing to US-Israeli relations, by suggesting weakening Bluth’s efforts even more by reducing restraining orders – a measure which is nowhere near as effective or draconian as administrative detention – Katz seems to be moving himself from the category of naïve mismanagement to Itamar Ben Gvir-levels of potentially more deliberately trying to frustrate law enforcement efforts.
Further, although Katz is the front man for these issues, they have popped up enough now that it is hard to separate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from contributory responsibility for the effort to weaken law enforcement efforts against Jewish extremist violence.
Multiple requests by the Jerusalem Post to different IDF spokespeople about whether IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir would publicly back Bluth in the battle were met with a mix of silence or comments that until Katz actually summons Bluth, no position need be taken.
If this was the first act in this play, that might be true.
But after Katz steamrolled the IDF, the Shin Bet, and Bluth regarding administrative detention after he floated a similar media trial balloon which no one pushed back on, all signs are that Zamir will not stand up to the defense minister if Katz wants to go to the mat.
One twist is that Bluth is freer now to try to stand up to Katz on his own than at any other time in his term.
He already finished two years in his role recently, and has been requesting a transfer for months, given that IDF central commander is an extremely unforgiving role.
With few other highly qualified candidates ready to take the role, Zamir has asked Bluth to stay on indefinitely.
This could give Bluth some unusual pull to stand his ground on some issues.
But regardless of how Bluth comes out on the issue, if Katz goes through with his latest threat to weaken law enforcement against Jewish extremist violence even more, he will have exposed a more deliberate problematic agenda on the issue.
