With attention focused on the war in Gaza, an escalation of violence in the West Bank is going largely unnoticed, although at least 147 Palestinians have been killed and 1,430 arrested in clashes with the Israeli security forces since the beginning of the war.
However, there is also a worrying surge in settler violence against Palestinians and, in many cases, it is targeting Palestinians for being exactly that, Palestinians, with eight reportedly killed by settlers, including one child, since Oct. 7. Not only is this phenomenon abhorrently criminal but, particularly at this tense time, it is also harmful to Israel’s interest in keeping the West Bank quiet while it is at war in Gaza. This is particularly true as the situation regarding Hezbollah on its border with Lebanon is also on a knife-edge. Under these circumstances, the Israeli government’s failure to curb this behavior defies all logic, while the international community’s enervated response to settler violence is also deeply concerning.
To be sure, it is a relatively small number of settlers that are involved in aggression and the harassment of Palestinians, but they are still causing great suffering to many innocent people who have the right to expect to be protected by the occupying power. Most settler attacks are predominantly directed against rural Palestinian shepherding communities — families living on small farms or in villages and towns in the West Bank that are in close proximity to Israeli settlements and outposts. And it has been reported that, in some cases, entire communities have felt forced to flee for their safety.
The attackers are taking advantage of the fact that many of these Palestinians reside in Area C of the West Bank, which is under complete Israeli security and civil control; in other words, there is no one there to protect them. Over the years, settler violence has taken many forms, including physical violence, shootings with live ammunition, the torching of fields and livestock, theft and the vandalization of property, trees and crops, stone-throwing, the persistent intimidation of herders and their families and, on a number of occasions, the murder of Palestinians or committing of pogroms against Palestinian communities.
The army even escorts settlers engaged in these criminal activities to protect them from their would-be victims.
Unfathomably, while the vast majority of Israelis are still coming to terms with the gravity of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, some of the religious-Zionist settlers see those events as a sign from the divinity to embark on a war, believing that this will end in Israel taking complete control of the “promised land.” There are worrying signs that this distorted ideology has also penetrated a number of military units in which Orthodox Zionists serve and, on some occasions, they have been recorded chanting “may your village burn,” which is both racist and threatening toward Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line.
The army even escorts settlers
engaged in these criminal
activities to protect them
from their would-be victims
If it was not enough that the Israeli army is failing to protect Palestinians from settler terrorism, on many occasions it even escorts settlers engaged in these criminal activities to protect them from their would-be victims, which adds insult to injury. To make things worse, there is not much of a legal remedy for those Palestinians that are attacked. According to the Israeli nongovernmental organization Yesh Din, 93 percent of investigations into ideological crimes against Palestinians never end in charges brought. There is a growing understanding among the international community that settler violence is having an unsettling impact on the West Bank and beyond. US officials have recently become more vocal in criticizing the Israeli government for its “deliberate helplessness” in failing to curb settlers’ attacks on innocent civilians. There is growing concern that settler violence could open a third front for Israel, as it inflames an already explosive situation and, in doing so, has an adverse economic impact on Palestinians.
Continuing settler violence will only trigger an eruption of popular anger in the West Bank that could bring down the PA. Moreover, at a time when the Palestinian Authority and its security forces are making a huge effort to keep the West Bank calm — and this at a time when many of their brethren are being killed by Israel in Gaza — the assaults on Palestinians there make their task of preventing an eruption much harder, especially as the PA lacks popular legitimacy. Hence, President Joe Biden demanded: “It has to stop. They have to be held accountable. It has to stop now.” He rightly blamed settlers for adding fuel to the flames. He was followed by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who was more specific when he told CNN that it is the responsibility of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rein in the extremist settlers in the West Bank.
Netanyahu, who has never shown much empathy toward the Palestinians and has done nothing to stop settler violence, was forced by such American pressure to pay lip service to the issue. He spoke against settler violence and the damage it is doing to Israel’s interests in the West Bank for the first time since the beginning of the Gaza war. Yet, only a few hours later, it was reported that, in a meeting with settlement leaders, he claimed that he had told Biden that the accusations against the settlers were baseless and that, in any case, the attacks did not originate from the settlements, which of course is false. This is not a good omen for anyone expecting Netanyahu’s government to get firm with those settlers who engage in violence.
The war in Gaza has significantly worsened the already complicated state of Israeli-Palestinian relations, with unforeseeable consequences, and there is an urgent need to de-escalate on all fronts. Continuing settler violence will only trigger an eruption of popular anger in the West Bank that could bring down the PA. And as long as there remains no viable alternative to the PA, chaos, extremism and fringe militant movements will become more prominent.
As reluctant as the government’s security forces are to confront these Jewish outlaws in the West Bank, political and military leaders know very well that their behavior has no justification or strategic logic and they are simply a time bomb. Stopping this ugly phenomenon will not take more than arresting and charging those perpetrating these criminal activities and removing from the Occupied Territories those who incite others to aggression. But Netanyahu is saying one thing abroad and another to his coalition partners. The extremists among the settlers might see in their messianic delusion an Armageddon approaching, one that will hand Israel a final victory, but it is for the Israeli government to ensure that it does not let the situation turn apocalyptic.
Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House.
X: @YMekelberg
Source: Arab News
