Israel is a small country, both in population and territory. It is very successful for its size but still dependent on outside support or at least acceptance to survive in the long term. By far the most important ally is the United States. At the moment a big majority of US citizens identifies more with Israel than with Palestinians. Public opinion in Europe seems more balanced but all in all largely indifferent. Public opinion in Arab states and the Muslim world is more on the side of the Palestinians but the matter seems to have lost importance over the years. The key question is therefore:
How would public opinion in the US, Europe and relevant Arab and Muslim states react if Israel applied measures of “arrest and prevent return” or “permanently incapacitate”to crush NVR?
In the US, the favourable opinion of Israel seems to largely rests on the perception of “good vs evil”. Arrest and prevent return or permanently incapacitate would contradict this narrative substantially. It seems very likely that a very strong majority of the US public and decision makers would clearly object to these measures. If that assessment is correct, it would make it very difficult for Israel to carry them out.
In Europe, the degree of objection would likely be even stronger. And it can be expected that Arab and Muslim states would reject the use of arrest and prvent return or permanently incapacitate in the strongest possible way.
It is very likely that Israeli decision makers would understand this perfectly well. Resorting to arrest and prevent return or permanently incapacitate would probably inflict irreparable damage to Israel’s standing in the world and pose an existential threat. This increases the success chance of NVR.
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