The West Bank’s boiling point

In the three years since Hamas attacked Israel and Israel responded with a military campaign in Gaza, much of the world's attention has been focused there. But in the West Bank, over the past three years, a longstanding pattern has become more concerning. There are growing numbers of attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers. There are some acts of daily harassment like trespassing on Palestinian property, vandalism, stalking people blocking roads and preventing access to resources like water wells. There are also acts of extreme violence. There have been some very serious physical assaults, settlers throwing rocks with slingshots. Last year, there was a viral video of an elderly woman who was beaten with a stick as she was hospitalized for days. And lately, we've been seeing more mob violence, where a large group of settlers will raid a Palestinian village. They've set mosques and other property on fire. Coming up on today's point from Vox, who is responsible for the violence in the West Bank? Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project, one after accounting another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them talk to each other. That's where Oda comes in, an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together. And sells an accounting to inventory and marketing, all-in-one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at od.com/Vox. That's odl.com/Vox. Whenever shows up around your home this holiday season, with Ring, you're protected. Battery doorbell 2K+ features retinal 2K clarity end up to 6 times enhanced zoom, so you can get a closer look without losing detail. Inside, the compact indoor cam plugs in almost anywhere, making it easy to check in on your home and pets while you're away. And without our cam plus, you can keep an eye on your yard and other outdoor spaces, all right from the Ring app. With Ring, you're protected for the holidays. Push up cameras, doorbells, and more at Ring.com. This is today explained. Feliz Solomon is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal based in Tel Aviv. Feliz wrote about an attack that happened just last week in the West Bank near the Palestinian village of Jaloud. Over the summer, some young settlers who are associated with a group called the Hilltop Youth set up an encampment around three houses on the outskirts of the Palestinian village Jaloud. And essentially, they besieged the houses. They blocked their access to essential goods and harassed the residents until in late July, they felt so unsafe that they fled. Two of those houses belonged to the Tubasi family. And in early September, Israel's high court ordered the state to ensure their safe return. In late September, they tried to go back. When this happened, we spoke with Wile, who is one member of the family, and also with their lawyer about what happened when they tried to go back. A few dozen security forces were deployed to escort them home in the middle of the night. And when they got there, they found that the house was totally ransacked. They damaged everything. The doors, the towels were removed, the stairs were removed. They smashed the bathrooms, doors and windows, they left nothing. When they came inside for the first time in about two months, they were walking through the property, looking at the damage with flashlights. And they'd only been there for just a few minutes when suddenly they were surrounded by a mob of settlers. They started approaching the house and entering through the windows while some entered through the doors. So they said at first that it was about 50 settlers around the house. And the military later said that there were more than 100 people that took part, and they had called it a riot. So the authorities told the family to take cover deeper inside the house, and they hid inside a stairwell. As the soldiers tried to force these settlers to retreat. But they were shouting and throwing rocks at the house. And then according to Wile, they even started climbing in through the windows. So at that point, the authorities told the family to go up stairs all the way up to the roof and to hide in a corner of the rooftop. The soldiers were in the stairwell, but they couldn't control the settlers. The settlers went up the stairs and reached the rooftop where we were. The soldiers fired pepper spray at them as they were coming up the stairs, as well as grenades, but it did not work. They were organized quick and in large numbers. And Wile explained what he saw up there, which is he was looking down and he saw the soldiers battling it out with this large group of settlers and this big cloud of tear gas and loud bangs from stun grenades. They managed to reach the rooftop, so the border police moved us into a corner and managed to separate us from them. They threw stones on us. Eventually, the security forces realized that they weren't getting the situation under control. They had to get this family out of there, so they took them back downstairs and outside and put them in a military vehicle. But then the settlers surrounded the vehicle and they were kind of rocking the car and they slashed the tire so that they couldn't leave in it. So then the soldiers had to move them into an armored military vehicle and eventually got them out. And a short while later, not long after they had escaped, they started receiving video messages from some of their neighbors that showed what happened after they left, which was that their car and their house had been set on fire. All right, so the Israeli authorities in the form of soldiers were trying to help this Palestinian family legally return and settlers violently blocked them. So this is a settlers versus the authorities. What do we know about who these settlers are and what is motivating them? This was a very large group. We know of three people who were detained in this incident. All of them were teenagers. The youngest one, I believe, was 15 years old. A lot of the harassment in this area comes out of a nearby settlement called Eshkodesh and smaller, more informal settlements around it that are called outposts. And these outposts are usually pretty crude encampments. They often start with just tents or a camper van or a trailer with no electricity and no water. And the people who choose to live in these places tend to be very young, very extreme ideological settlers. You mentioned something called the hilltop youth. Who are they? The hilltop youth is a loose network of settlers that live outside the mainstream. And they often have much more extremist views than the mainstream settler movement. It's an offshoot of religious Zionism, which is one of the main ideologies of the settler movement. And it sort of fuses the ideas of orthodox Judaism with ultranationalism. The hilltop youth take these ideas to the extreme. And I've spoken with a bunch of them myself. They believe that they're basically on a divine mission to reclaim the Holy Land for Jews. And they'll cite parts of the Torah and other religious texts that they think they interpret as empowering them to take the land back and even to use violence. They see it as a sort of preventive type of self-defense. And they see themselves as protecting all other Jews. I want to say that we are here at a super strategic point. We came here to settle the land by the will of the Almighty. And we are doing God's will here. And with God's help, we will act and succeed. A holy Jewish farm will be established here. We're sick of being stuck in ghettos inside the settlements surrounded by walls unable to leave. We venture out into the wild open spaces. We go wherever we want, where Jews have not set foot for years, if not decades or centuries. OK, so this is very interesting. These are young people. You said some of them as young as teenagers. Where are they coming from? Why are their parents not grounding them? Like, how has this been allowed to unfold the way it has? It's a good question. And I should say also that not all hilltop youths are violent, but a lot of the violence that's committed by Jews in the West Bank does come from this group. And they come from all over the place. Some of them grew up in the settlements. And then as teenagers, they kind of wandered and they struck out on their own. And then there are others who come from all over Israel. A lot of the hilltop youth we're finding are kind of troubled kids. Sometimes they're dropouts from strict religious schools. They have behavioral issues or ADHD and they just didn't really fit in. We heard from some kids who said that they found out about the outpost by word of mouth. Like someone at their school had invited them to come for the weekend and they'd come and they'd stay a few days and eventually they'd start spending more and more time there until at some point they're just living there. There are a number of NGOs that recruit young kids to come work as farm hands on agricultural outposts in the West Bank. And some of those are in these areas that are kind of more prone to radicalization. So what these organizations will do, and they present themselves as very innocent in that they're identifying kids that need help and bringing them to a place where they will learn some discipline and they will have a purpose and they'll have something to do. But what often ends up happening is that that's putting them into a more extremist environment. In the case of the family you profiled into Lude, it's clear that the Israeli authorities in the form of soldiers attempted to help the family get back to where they were determined to legally be allowed to be in their home. How does this typically play out though? How do Israeli soldiers typically respond when settlers attack Palestinians? Here there's also a mix. There have been a number of high-profile examples of video footage circulating that appears to show Israeli soldiers either standing idly by or even some would argue citing with the settlers. In one recent example, there was a video that showed some soldiers praying alongside settlers who had besieged the home of a Palestinian-American man. And that was actually not very far from where the Tabasi houses. So the military said that it was looking into it to determine whether a disciplinary action needed to be taken. In general, military officials acknowledge that this violence by settlers is a big problem. And the security establishment definitely does not support what's happening here. They see it as getting in the way of counterterrorism efforts and overall efforts to bring stability to this very volatile area. And I've heard this directly from military officers. But on the ground, there does seem to be a breakdown of discipline in some cases and lack of clear instruction in other cases. Some soldiers simply don't know how to deal with threats from other Israelis, especially really young ones, as you pointed out. It's just not what they're trained to do. Do you think the government could put a stop to these attacks by settlers if it wanted to? Or has the government lost control? That's a very good question. This problem has gotten so big that it's going to be very difficult to solve without significant backlash. But I have spoken with a number of former Israeli security officials who say yes, much more could be done starting with more frank acknowledgement of what's happening, clearer law enforcement procedures, and more disciplinary actions. Feliz Solomon in Tel Aviv with the Wall Street Journal, coming up, "Can political pressure put a stop to settler violence in the West Bank?" Whatever shows up around your home this holiday season, with Ring, you're protected. Battery doorbell 2K+ features retinal 2K clarity end up to six times in hand zoom, so you can get a closer look without losing detail. 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Chime, on the other hand, offers the most rewarding fee-free banking, all with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, no minimum balance fees. You can join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Ed to chime.com/explain, that is chime.com/explain, you can sign up now for chime, it only takes a few minutes. Chime is a fintech, not a bank, banking services and chime card provided by Chime's bank partners, qualifying direct deposits required, terms and limits apply, go to chime.com/disclosures for details. I'm Noel King with Michael Kaplo, Michael's the Chief Policy Officer at the Israel Policy Forum. That's a research organization dedicated to supporting U.S. foreign policy, a round of viable resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the first half of the show, we talked about increasing incidents of settler violence in the West Bank. Let's talk first about how the Israeli government has been responding to this over the past three or so years. Consistently throughout this entire period, the line from the government is that this is something that's really a social work problem. A settler violence thing is a tremendous hope, not because there isn't settler, it's not because it's about 150, 200 juvenile delinquents, a handful of young juvenile delinquents, about 150 and number. It's an issue of youth from broken homes and that the Israeli government needs to do something to get on top of it, but that it's not nearly as big of a problem as is portrayed outside of Israel's borders. It's not a problem that extends to things like Israeli government policy or the Israeli police or the IDF. Who goes, who throw stones, who chop down all of trees, occasionally they do, they fire up, they let some fires, I can't stand that. Is it something that you as prime minister, particularly as you're running, you know, to stay in power once again? Is this something that you will address? I've already addressed it, I've condemned it. So it's really been a consistent effort to minimize and downplay the scope and severity of what's going on. Okay, minimizing and downplaying are one thing and I hear what you're saying about the ways in which the minimization and the downplaying are being articulated by the government is the Netanyahu government backing the settlers at all. So that depends on what you mean by the Netanyahu government. There are absolutely ministries and ministers within the government that are actively backing and aiding this violence. And by that, I don't necessarily mean that they are out there giving instructions to settlers who commit terrorism against Palestinians. But what they've been doing is making the conditions for this type of terrorism and this type of violence far more hospitable. All right, I want to ask you about how the rest of the world is responding to what's going on in the West Bank, starting with the United States. So people were very surprised back in early September when Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, came out and was very critical of settlers in the West Bank. When you try to create an atmosphere in which people feel uncomfortable living in their own homes, their children playing in their own lawns and yards and people feeling that they're not safe and that they're not secure because of the behavior, the actions and the intimidation of others. That's terrorism by any definition. What would Huckabee say exactly? Huckabee is somebody who is very sympathetic to the settlement project writ large and to settlers writ large. He refers to the West Bank consistently as Judea's Marriott, which is a parlance that's been widely adopted in Israel as well to stress the biblical connection that Jews have to the land. 80% of the Bible happened in the area of Judea's Marriott. And in the past, he has been in favor of Israel annexing the territory. So he's somebody who is unobachably in favor of Israel. settlement. What he did is to come out and refer to the violence taking place against Palestinians as terrorism. And he has said that it's a problem and that Israel has to address it. Of all the Trump administration officials, he's the one who has been the most vocal and the most outspoken and I think also the most strident against the violent that's taking place. My view is that crime is crime and terror is terror and it ought to be a consequence to the full extent of the law. And in Huckabee's case, there seem to be two things that are driving this. One is that many of the incidents of settler violence and Jewish terrorism have taken place against American citizens. And when it happens to an American citizen, as it did recently, then it is our responsibility as an American embassy to engage and to be as strong as we can be in saying this is unacceptable behavior. There's a large Palestinian population inside of the West Bank who have American citizenship. Many of them actually live in the United States and keep what are effectively second homes inside of the West Bank. It's also impacted a lot of villages and towns where you have Christian populations. And that too is something that has really got when Huckabee worked up. And when he's spoken about settler violence, he's oftentimes talked about the fact that it violates his Christian faith and what he sees as Christian principles. Michael, there are a lot of countries that have been critical of Israel's actions in Gaza. As you know, what has the rest of the world said or been saying about what's going on in the West Bank? There's a lot of criticism coming from Europeans in particular on what's going on in the West Bank. So when the Biden administration had its sanctions regime, it was joined by the UK, the EU, Canada, and a number of other countries. And those countries have maintained their sanctions on violent settlers. They, in some cases, they've also gone farther than what the US did by sanctioning some of the NGOs that are involved in spreading settler violence. The UK and other countries in Europe are also focused not just on settler violence, but on Israeli settlement policies. And Ed Miliband, the relatively new Foreign Secretary, gave a speech before Labour Party conference a couple of weeks ago. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. With permission, I would like to make a statement on Israel and Palestine. There he talked about this and he talked about what he viewed as the need to make sure that a two-state outcome between Israel and Palestinians is preserved. So Madam Deputy Speaker, I'm proud of my Jewishness and I'm wavering in my support for the state of Israel. And there's absolutely no contradiction between this and my support for the state of Palestine. And this seems to me in a direction in which the Europeans are moving and in many ways it's being led by the UK. There are also many former Israeli officials who have been protesting what's been going on in the West Bank. Tell me about who they are and whether you think them raising their voices at this point is significant here. This has been notable because the movement that's really trying to call out settler violence in the West Bank and talking about it as a moral stain on Israel and that's something that's damaging to Israel's reputation internationally is being led by literally the highest-ranking former officials in the political and security establishments. So you have multiple former prime ministers who have spoken out. An effort of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians living in the West Bank. You have multiple former defense ministers and IDF chiefs of staff who have spoken out. You have multiple former heads of the Mosad and the Shunbet and IDF central command. I feel ashamed to be a Jew here today. And what they're saying is that one, this is a stain on Israel morally because of what's happening to Palestinians. Two, it is incredibly damaging to Israel's reputation and Israel's position abroad and that eventually the cost for that is going to fall on all Israelis and we are starting to see that as now sanctions on settlements are being rolled out. And third, they're saying that it actually puts Israel itself at risk because if the state cannot get a handle on this terrorism and all the more so if the government's line is to be believed that this is really only a few hundred youth, the fact that the government seems completely unable to stop it actually presents a serious threat to the rule of law inside of Israel and the ability of the government to function. If the settlers in the West Bank have even passive support from the Israeli government, do or from parts of the Israeli government, do condemnations and sanctions and other world leaders yelling about it, does that actually do anything meaningful to stop the violence? I think it depends. It hasn't done anything meaningful to stop the violence yet but we're talking about the most right-wing ultra-nationalist government in Israel's history and one that is very underwater in the polls and is facing Israeli voters in three weeks' time. So I'm honestly not sure there's anything that any country, including the United States could do in the next few weeks, that would get the Israeli government to shift course in a meaningful way given the political incentives ahead of an election where this is not an issue that is popular with Israelis. We don't see Israelis standing up and supporting settler violence, but for a right-wing nationalist government that has to hold on to its right-wing nationalist base and really can't afford to lose even one vote, this is just not something that they're going to tackle ahead of an election. And if there's a new government, then I think a new government will tackle this issue and it may not require sanctions or punitive activity to get them to do it. Michael Kaplow of the Israel Policy Forum. Aveshai Artsi and Kelly Westinger produced today in Amin El Saadi edited. Gabriel Dunnetov checked the facts, David Tatashore and Bridger Dunnigan engineered. I'm the Will King, it's today explained. Whatever shows up around your home this holiday season with Ring, you're protected. Battery Doorbell 2K+ features retinal 2K clarity and up to 6 times enhanced zoom so you can get a closer look without losing detail. And without the outdoor cam plus, you can keep an eye on your yard and other outdoor spaces, all right from the Ring app. With Ring, you're protected for the holidays, shop cameras, doorbells and more at ring.com. (upbeat music)