Protective Presence: A Spit Can Ruin Your Day
The violence in the West Bank is escalating. It’s all over the news, internationally and increasingly, within Israel—thank goodness, because I don’t think people in Israel realize what’s going on. Most condemn the actions of the extremist settlers, but they cannot believe that the army and the police are complicit. Israel is a democratic, law-and-order country. The army are our children. But both the army and the police are top-down institutions. Their actions are only as good as the orders received from the top, and with dangerous extremists like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich at the helm, the people on the ground have to be complicit, whether they want to or not.
But I still don’t get it. Because so many seem to embrace complicity. Of course I’ve read about the ‘numbness’ factor; soldiers who hate what’s going on, keep their heads down and fulfil their basic duties. Several soldiers have been kind and showed empathy; one even gave
us his number so we could call him directly if we were threatened. But they are the minority.
Why did the investigator Sarah treat me like the villain at the police station? Why do the soldiers mounting a checkpoint at the entrance to Taybeh pelt us with contemptuous questions as though they doubted our loyalty and love for Israel? We’re not the ones betraying the very values that Judaism and Israel are founded on. We’re not the ones destroying lives of innocent people because we want to steal their land.
I don’t get it. And that’s why I talk to the settlers all the time. Why? Why? Why?
Every experience just confuses me more. I still haven’t worked out what was actually going on at Abu Waseem’s place in the story below.
When I do Protective Presence shifts, I always take the bus to and from my apartment in Jerusalem to the Jewish settlement Kokav Yaakov, because no bus takes me to Taybeh. Activists pick me up and drive me the last few kilometres as I mentally transition from the religious settler-filled world of the bus to the rocky hills of the Bedouin.
Anat fills me in on the events of the day: “Satan, Nehoriah and two other settlers were trying to break down Abu Waseem’s fence all morning.”
I don’t like Anat very much. She is tough and stupid, and speaks to every settler as though they’re all equally scum. “We were only three so we couldn’t stop them. They drove their herds right up to the houses and cut the water and electricity lines. Animals,” Anat chirps.
I imagine the family cowering in terror, wondering if their windows would be smashed. Wondering what the settlers would do if they entered the houses. “When the fuck are they going to build a better fence? My sister has raised the money already!”
Anat shrugs elaborately. Things move slowly in the West Bank.
We turn into the driveway and descend the steep hill, parking beside Abu Waseem’s car. “Oh good,” Anat squeaks. “Satan wouldn’t let Abu Waseem enter his driveway; he got his cronies to sit in the middle of the driveway to stop him getting in. Glad he’s in now.”
Then we see the army vehicles. My heart soars. When the army arrives, the nightmare ends.
The sturdy gate—bought with my sister’s fundraiser— lords it over the pathetic strands of wire on either side. Instead of waiting for someone to unlock the gate, we hop over the broken fence.
And walk directly into a large group of soldiers and settlers.
I gawp. Usually when the army arrives the Bedouin come out of their houses to spill their woes, but I can’t see anyone from the family. Instead, about 7 settlers are arguing with the army and police. What are they doing *inside* the compound of my family? I begin to film.
The settlers are claiming that someone threw a rock at them and they want to go into the houses to find them. This is very typical. They leave a sheep behind when they exit a Palestinian compound and then claim the Palestinians stole it.
“You’re lying. You’re lying,” an activist repeats.
Suddenly Ben Pazi strolls into Abu Waseem’s compound as though he owned it, which of course is exactly what he thinks. Ben Pazi, the head honcho of a bunch of illegal settlements.
I’ve never seen Ben Pazi before.
“You called me and I came to help you,” the police officer tells Ben Pazi. “I came for you. You are the boss of everything that happens here…”
Why are the police telling Neria Ben Pazi that he’s the boss? What power does Ben Pazi have?
WHY DON’T I UNDERSTAND ANYTHING??
I shoot a panicked glance at Anat. Our pitiful cameras against their Uzis.
But the police officer continues: “…let’s talk outside the compound. Come on, take your boys outside. I am here to help you.”
(https://youtube.com/shorts/QNNaFlVv5tw?feature=share
Caption: The Army and the Police in the West Bank; video by Charlotte Mendel, 2026)
He knows that nobody threw a rock. He is doing the right thing; taking the settlers away. Maybe it was just flattery; transmitting a dopamine rush to Ben Pazi’s massive ego so he would leave peacefully.
Or something really fucked up is going on.
Abu Waseem’s daughters come out and invite us for tea. I especially like Leila, probably because she especially likes me. “You are so strong,” Google translate tells me. “I admire you.”
She is referring to the times when I put my body between a settler and the fence to prevent them breaking through. Some activists feel they are there to record, not to be physically abused. They maintain a distance, filming constantly. But my camera is crap, I can’t see anything in the boiling sun and my video clips are fantastic if you’re a geologist studying rocks. I have to do something useful and I can’t watch the settlers breaking down a fence without trying to stop it.
Abu Waseem guffaws. “You are like a man.”
I look at the dignified face of the gentle Abu Waseem, who always thanks us so courteously for our help, and never asks for anything. I know he *thinks* that is a compliment.
“I don’t know what we’d do without your help,” he continues in Hebrew.
“Don’t thank me,” I respond brusquely. “It’s my people doing this to you. I’m helping because I’m ashamed.”
“But you don’t have to come here. I don’t have a choice, but you do. You choose to come to this nightmare every day. You get hit to protect me.”
Only because the people who are supposed to protect you aren’t. Our police. Our army. Our children are the army. I love the army. Do they hand-pick racists to serve here?
‘Where are you from, son? Tel Aviv? Off to Lebanon with you.’
‘How about you, son? Kiryat Arba? Excellent! Go protect the extremist settlers in the West Bank!’
We compare videos, as always after an event. “Why did the police tell Ben Pazi he controls everything here?” I ask Anat.
Predictably, she goes into a rant about the corruption of the police and army, how terrible everything and everyone is…another black and white person. The police actually did the right thing today. Why do I even ask?
Then she shows me a video from earlier, when Satan had instructed his friends to block Abu Waseem’s car so he couldn’t enter his driveway.
In the video, Satan spits on Abu Waseem. My intelligent, gracious friend. I watch the video again and again. For some reason, it upsets me more than anything else.
Both the spit and the army/police interaction with Ben Pazi are attached, as well as a video clip of me protecting the fence with my body against Nehoriah, yakking non-stop as usual.
Which one upsets you more?
(https://youtu.be/yjpdKMaPh0E
Caption: Nehoriah trying to get through the fence; video by Charlotte Mendel, 2026