Palestinian Police Abduct an IDF Reservist: The Incident "Security Coordination" Can No Longer Hide

In the early hours of Sunday morning, near Beitunia in Judea and Samaria, Shlomo Rosenthal, a member of a local security team, was driving toward Jerusalem when he spotted flashing lights at a junction. He assumed it was an Israeli police checkpoint. It was an illegal roadblock, set up in Area C — where the Palestinian Authority has no right to operate — by uniformed Palestinian policemen.

According to his testimony to i24NEWS, the policemen blocked his vehicle, opened his door and tried to snatch his weapon. When he refused, reinforcements arrived. Rosenthal says he was sprayed with tear gas, kicked in the face, disarmed, handcuffed, then driven to Ramallah in a police vehicle. It took coordination with the Civil Administration for him to be handed back to Israeli forces. Three PA policemen have since been arrested and are being questioned; the Israeli security establishment speaks of a "grave overstepping of authority" that endangered the life of an Israeli citizen.

Let's pause on what this episode actually means. An armed Israeli, part of a security apparatus, was abducted by men in the uniform of an entity the international community presents as the future "reformed" Palestinian state. Not by a Hamas cell: by Ramallah's official police force, the very one Western chancelleries fund and train in the name of the celebrated "security coordination." If a trained reservist, armed, on a road he knows, can end up handcuffed in Ramallah, what happens to an isolated civilian?

The Israeli response is worth noting: the arrest of the three policemen, continued coordination "in accordance with the directives of the political echelon," but a clear warning that "no deviation from procedures will be accepted." Israel Gantz, chairman of the Yesha Council and the Binyamin Regional Council, welcomed a "clear message" on Israel's security responsibility in Area C — while demanding protection for Israelis in Area B and a secure corridor between Dolev-Talmonim and Route 443. In other words: the problem hasn't been solved, it has been mapped.

And this is where the affair takes on its real dimension. This very week, twelve European capitals are sanctioning Israel over construction in Judea and Samaria, and the British Foreign Office speaks of "settler terrorists." But when Palestinian Authority policemen illegally cross the limits of their jurisdiction to abduct an Israeli, there is no statement, no sanction, no regime of "tough" measures. The asymmetry is not a detail: it is the message. It tells the Palestinians that their official institutions can overstep without any diplomatic cost.

The angle nobody is highlighting: this incident is a real-world test of the project, pushed by the Europeans and part of Washington, to hand more territory to a "revitalized" PA — including, tomorrow, in Gaza. Beitunia just showed what the PA does when it steps outside its perimeter: an illegal roadblock, a beating and an abduction. Before expanding its mandate, perhaps someone should check that it respects the one it already has.