Israel Must Stop Extremism for Security and Peace

The removal of four unauthorized outposts in Judea and Samaria on November 9 and 10 brought Israeli security forces into confrontation with civilians who erected burning barricades and threw stones at soldiers. The military said the sites had been linked to repeated attacks on Palestinians. On November 11, police arrested four Israelis suspected of involvement in a September 29 assault on forces escorting a displaced Palestinian family back to its home.

The violence did not stop there. On November 12, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported that a 67-year-old Palestinian man had been injured in an attack near Ramallah. The following day, Palestinian media reported an arson attack and anti-Arab graffiti in the Christian village of Taybeh. The circumstances of individual incidents remain subject to investigation, but the wider pattern is difficult to dismiss.

The central issue is not only the harm inflicted on Palestinian civilians. Extremists claiming to protect Israeli communities are obstructing the institutions responsible for security and turning nationalist violence into an internal challenge to the authority of the state. In doing so, they make an already fragile political settlement more difficult to imagine.

A November 1 directive issued to commanders by the Israel Defense Forces makes the institutional concern explicit. It warns that violence by Israeli civilians against Palestinians and their property diverts forces from counterterrorism, increases the risk of escalation and causes strategic damage. It also identifies the protection of Palestinian residents and their daily lives as part of the army’s responsibilities in Judea and Samaria.

Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir stressed that the rioters do not represent the wider Israeli communities in the area. Their conduct, he warned, endangers those communities, security stability and the values of the state. His distinction matters because individual extremists cannot be allowed to speak for entire communities or decide when soldiers may enforce the law.

The figures reinforce the warning. Security establishment data reported by The Times of Israel recorded 660 incidents of nationalist crime during the first half of 2026, compared with 405 during the same period in 2025, an increase of 63 percent. Forty-five incidents targeted Israeli security personnel in the first half of 2026. Separately, United Nations monitors documented 410 attacks linked to the olive harvest between September 1 and November 9.

Israeli law has long recognized the duty to protect Palestinian farmers. In the 2006 Morar case, which concerned Palestinian farmers whose access to their land had been restricted amid attacks and harassment, the Supreme Court ruled that such restrictions were not an adequate substitute for protecting them against unlawful violence. It required better security arrangements and enforcement against offenders, a responsibility whose uneven implementation remains visible two decades later.

President Isaac Herzog added his warning in an October 8 letter, made public in November, describing an explosive situation and a shortage of personnel and enforcement tools. Arrests and the removal of unauthorized sites show that Israeli authorities can intervene, but repeated attacks expose the limitations of measures that are not followed by sustained prevention and accountability.

The political damage accumulates alongside the security costs. When Palestinians cannot safely harvest their land or return home, confidence in the value of negotiated guarantees deteriorates. Those willing to pursue compromise face greater difficulty defending that choice, while the perpetrators of violence gain another opportunity to deepen mistrust.

Israel has experienced the danger of ideological violence directed against peace itself. The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a Jewish extremist opposed to the Oslo agreements remains a stark reminder of how fanaticism can attack democratic institutions and political compromise. The circumstances differ today, but the responsibility to confront political violence is no less important.

Regional objections reflect the same concern about Palestinian protection and the prospects for a settlement. In a November 2025 message to a United Nations committee, King Mohammed VI of Morocco warned that attacks on Palestinians and their property, alongside displacement in the West Bank, were destroying the foundations of a two-state solution.

Morocco reiterated its support for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, 2026. A week later, before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, its delegation explicitly denounced what it called systematic violence against Palestinian civilians and warned that displacement undermined the conditions for an independent Palestinian state.

In a September 22 joint statement, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar and three other states called for accountability over attacks on Palestinians. Jordan condemned the October 17 assault on Palestinian olive harvesters and visiting European diplomats in Taybeh, while the United Arab Emirates condemned the attack on the diplomats two days later. Both states warned of the damage to peace efforts.

The response must be more durable than successive condemnations. Israel’s military, police and security services need coordinated prevention, credible investigations and effective prosecution, while soldiers must be able to protect Palestinian civilians without being obstructed by Israeli extremists.

A state cannot sustain security through military strength while tolerating violence that erodes its own legal authority. Nor can agreements produce lasting peace when civilians have reason to doubt that those commitments will protect them. Confronting extremist violence is a test of Israel’s institutions and of whether a negotiated future can remain possible.