Unlikely Suspect Gives Me Hope
Phone call with my cousin who lives in a West Bank settlement. I mention plans to attend a training for “protective presence” in the West Bank.
He was unaware of this form of activism: Jews going to the West Bank to protect Palestinians from Hilltop Youth and Jewish settler violence. Not all Jewish settlers. It wasn’t part of the discussion, that by some standards Jewish settlers, by definition, are an attack on Palestinians. Therefore, it wasn’t part of the discussion that by some standards settler presence was perceivably a defense measure in given moments, inseparable from a continuum. Arguably Jewish settlers in the pre-state period enabled the establishment of the State of Israel – that state which arguably should translate the values it claims to be its underpinnings into the compass guiding its way. Acknowledging injustices that establishment incurred.
The absent elements of the discussion are protective, facing my lack for answers, their painful presence hovering overhead.
My explanation of protective presence was simple. I know my cousin sees complexity, condemns Hilltop Youth actions and Jewish terrorism. I don’t know if he uses the term, “Jewish terrorism.” He thinks it less rampant than I know it is. But we all know our choice and capacity to know is selective and limited, facing infinite information.
He told me that coming home recently, approaching his West Bank settlement, traffic was congested. He observed Hillside Youth on the roadside. He got out of his car, approached them, explaining to them that their behavior is unacceptable, deviating from Jewish values they presume to live by.
Based on information from participants in protective presence, I wonder how many of the Hilltop Youth my cousin confronted were 11-year-olds carrying pepper gas. Why are national and local welfare services in absentia? Hilltop Youth, children-at-risk, manipulated by cynical settlers. Do Hilltop Youth warrant less attention than other juvenile criminals?
The congestion by my cousin’s settlement met indifferent IDF soldiers on the sidelines where the traffic stopped. He told them to do their job, get the Hilltop Youth out of the way.
I told him older Hilltop Youth and extremist settlers are known to disappear when protective presence activists call the police as the former trespass in Palestinian villages, reappearing later in IDF uniform. He questioned this truth. I reminded him – lack of human resources and ultra-Orthodox Jews’ refusal to serve in the IDF result in less selectivity in enlisting youth-at-risk.
I dared tell him I’m afraid of attack by Jewish settlers, if I participate in protective presence. He said, “You have to follow your conscience.” He was not objecting to protective presence! I think we agree it’s about the rights of people to live without fear.
- Harriet Gimpel – July 4, 2026
