Raymond J. de Souza: The growing problem of settler violence in the West Bank

The aftermath of the Hamas massacre of October 2023 has reshaped the Middle East, including the current Iran war and its assorted consequences. One aspect of the new reality that has received relatively less attention is the rise of settler violence in the West Bank. It is a moral crisis for Israel, one in which the current leadership is the problem, not the solution. Former Israeli leaders are trying to correct that.

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The phenomenon of Jewish settlers in the West Bank resorting to violence earned swift condemnation from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government last year, after they set an Israel Defence Forces security facility on fire.

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Yet when violence, intimidation and harassment is directed at Palestinians in the West Bank, Netanyahu’s government is quick to downplay it.

Jewish “terrorism” against Muslim and Christian Palestinians is a strong term. Yet it was repeatedly used by two former Israeli prime ministers and dozens of high-ranking former IDF and security officials in a June letter to Netanyahu, professing their shame at what extremist Israelis are doing in the West Bank.

Armed settlers are, often with impunity, terrorizing Palestinians villages, setting their houses and property on fire, uprooting olive trees, destroying crops, stealing livestock and visiting violence upon Palestinians themselves. It is a campaign aimed at preventing a future Palestinian state and making life so dangerous that Palestinians in the West Bank might simply leave.

The extremists are a moral blight on all Jews who live in the West Bank and, because they are tolerated, if not supported, by the Netanyahu government, they have stained the reputation of the entire country.

That is a grievous failure of the Netanyahu government in the analysis of the signatories of the June letter. I have spent decades advocating for both Israel and Jews, and it is distressing that Israel now faces an urgent moral threat from its own government. That is the considered judgment of senior officials who have devoted their professional lives to Israeli sovereignty and security.

The June letter got less attention than it deserved. It was not released publicly in its entirely, but leaks were reported upon by Haaretz and the Guardian newspapers. It was also overshadowed in June by the Trump administration’s memorandum of understanding with Iran, the failed attempt to salvage the status quo ante of the Iran war, namely free passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

The June letter was sent confidentially to Netanyahu and other senior government and security officials and its leaked contents were reported on June 18.

The Guardian reported that signatories included two former prime ministers, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, four former ministers whose portfolios included defence and justice, and more than 30 former security commanders including two chiefs of staff of Israel’s military and heads of the Mossad, Shin Bet and the police.

The signatories accused the Netanyahu government, which includes the most hateful elements of right-wing extremism, of supporting a campaign of terror to achieve “ethnic cleansing” and “annexation” of the West Bank. The language is unsparing.

“This is not solely a military and police failure, but the implementation of an overt policy by the Israeli government and its prime minister in general, and by the relevant ministers in particular,” the letter said, accusing them of ordering “the military, the police and Shin Bet (the internal security agency) to enable the terrorism of Jewish criminals, because this horrendous phenomenon serves well the current government’s ideology of carrying out ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the territories of Judea and Samaria to facilitate their future annexation.”

That such prominent Israelis, whose commitment to Israel is beyond question, would condemn the Jewish violence in their midst is a sign that these settlers are not the true face of Israel. But they are one of the masks that the Netanyahu government is content to wear to preserve its electoral coalition.

The June letter threatened legal action if the Netanyahu government did not act against the violent settlers, though it is not clear what those actions would specifically be. Yet with an election coming in two months in Israel, it is also an invitation to voters to reject this government.

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