Israeli settler terrorism and American indifference

In the West Bank’s no-man’s-land, the olive harvest season for Palestinian farmers also marks the peak of Israeli settler violence.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, October was the most violent month in the West Bank in 20 years, with a horrifying average of about eight settler attacks per day. 264 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians were carried out last month, about 150 of which are directly related to the olive harvest season.

Jewish terrorists proudly announced their “struggle against the Arab enemy in the Holy Land in the month of Tishrei,” burning 33 vehicles and 12 houses, injuring 25 Palestinians, uprooting thousands of olive trees, and setting dozens of fields and orchards. All of this was publicized with the self-assurance of violent settlers who know there will be no accountability for their crimes.

These events continued with full force into November, and so, on the days we commemorate the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht, there are Israeli citizens who are carrying out pogrom-like attacks against Palestinians – burning homes and cars, beating Palestinians and Jewish solidarity activists, killing sheep and dogs, and even murdering people. Not only is there no one to maintain law and order, but this criminality is being carried out with the backing of the IDF. Rather than punishing the violent settlers, Israeli forces  often detain  the Palestinian victims.

The events of last weekend in the village of Burin near Nablus, when Israeli citizens accompanying the olive harvest were attacked by Jewish terrorists, point to a trend that no one appears willing to end, even as  Israelis in addition to Palestinians are becoming the victims.

All this is happening under the watchful eye of the American government, which, in contrast to its very active involvement in maintaining the ceasefire in Gaza, prefers to look away from the West Bank.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee was outraged when Israeli settler terrorists arrived in the Christian village of Taybeh and set fire to a church. “A crime against humanity,” Huckabee called it, just as he condemned the killing of an American citizen by Israeli settlers in Sinjil last summer. It appears, however, that as long as the victims of settler violence are Muslims without American citizenship, the ambassador is completely indifferent.

The Trump administration did indeed block the Israeli government from officially annexing the West Bank, but the reality on the ground is one of accelerating de-facto annexation. Ambassador Huckabee is completely coordinated with Smotrich and the heads of the regional councils in the West Bank and is sabotaging the White House’s efforts to promote a political settlement.

The Trump administration is very proud, and rightly so, of the ceasefire in Gaza and is working vigorously to enforce it. At the same time, however, it is allowing a blazing fire to spread in the West Bank. Even if the moral aspect is of less concern to the Trump Administration, as long as the US government continues to turn a blind eye to what is happening, the West Bank is bound to explode like Gaza did on October 7.

Some call this phenomenon sporadic violence committed by so-called “hilltop youth,” but it is actually an orchestrated campaign to fulfill far-right Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s plan for displacing Palestinians from their homes.

Settler violence is part of an overall policy of making life difficult for Palestinians living in the West Bank. The dozens of checkpoints scattered throughout the territory that make it challenging for Palestinians to move between West Bank cities, land confiscation, and the prevention of regular travel abroad through the Allenby Bridge are all part of this grand strategy..

The Netanyahu government does not hide its intention – “there must be voluntary migration … from Judea and Samaria,” as Likud Minister Gila Gamliel recently declared. This is indeed what the far-right government is trying to do – forcibly displace Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank.

Israeli violence will explode upon us all in the form of a third intifada. Stopping settler violence is in Israel and America’s interest, because as long as it continues as part of an overall Smotrich policy, the region will remain on the brink of explosion. This is a moral wrong, but also a strategic one. Proponents of the Abraham Accords might succeed in recruiting Kazakhstan, with whom Israel has had diplomatic relations for three decades, but not Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, so long as settler violence persists.