‘Crazy Times’: As Israeli Settlers Rampage With Impunity, Army Brass Describe an Unprecedented Reality
Israeli soldiers stopping Jewish settlers from entering the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya in the West Bank last week.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
The wave of protests by soldiers in the IDF reserves is currently being fueled, more than ever, by the events unfolding in the West Bank. The anger among reservists who are part of the protesters was intensified following the pogrom carried out by settlers in the Palestinian village of Hawara in February, which occurred in the aftermath of the murder of the Israeli Yaniv brothers.
The day after the pogrom, reservists from the 69th Squadron started organizing, and their collective refusal to report for training was one of the significant peaks of the previous crisis. Now the atmosphere is even more fraught. In response to the murder of four Israelis in the shooting attack next to the settlement of Eli last week, settlers embarked on dozens of retaliatory raids in villages in the Ramallah and Nablus regions.
The security forces failed completely in their attempts to curb the rampage, and raising questions about their about how hard they really tried to quell the riots.
Last Saturday evening, when the chief of staff, the head of the Shin Bet, and the commissioner of police issued a relatively stern joint statement denouncing the violence as Jewish terror (and rightfully so) and vowing to take decisive action against it, the settlers responded with a political assault this time.
‘Israel’s settlers don’t just have supporters in the government. They are the government’
Central Command is talking about “crazy times” in the territories, the likes of which even veteran officers don’t recall. The number of warnings about potenial terrorist attacks by Palestinians has significantly increased, and preperations for such attacks are now underway across the entire West Bank, spanning from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south. Thanks to the precise intelligence gathered by the Shin Bet and extensive arrests, a significant number of terrorist attacks have been prevented.
At the same time, and as distinct from previous periods, the most radical and violent faction of the settlers is represented at the cabinet table. Ministers are actively promoting the establishment of illegal settler outposts, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir urging the settlers to “run to the hilltops,” echoing what Ariel Sharon, then foreign minister in Netanyahu’s first government, said after the Wye River Conference in 1998. Some ministers are even backing the pogroms in Palestinian villages and are trying to intimidate high-ranking figures in the security establishment.
The ministers’ inflammatory statements are not impulsive reactions; rather, they are a deliberate attempt to restrain the Shin Bet from implementing extensive preventive measures, particularly after identifying some of the key instigators behind the pogroms.
On Tuesday, when Defense Minister Yoav Gallant sought to lead a public condemnation of the violence against Palestinians, as well as the derogatory language and threats directed at high-ranking IDF officers in the territories, Ben-Gvir obstructed the adoption of the resolution.
The emerging picture of mass violence backed by higher authorities, the helplessness of the security forces and the deliberate effort to create more settler outposts – is upsetting many reservists. Even the pilots generally are light years from the day-to-day reality of the occupation in the West Bank, are beginning to ask questions. Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi’s difficulty with the reservists is also related to the weakness the IDF has shown in the face of the state’s frequent violations of the law in the territories.
In late May, when settlers relocated a yeshiva in the evacuated outpost of Homesh to a new, equally illegal site, politicians ordered the army to shut up and obey. In the previous dispute with the reservists, the chief of staff told them that they could count on him when it comes to upholding the law. But in the test of Homesh, the IDF failed.
In the past two weeks, the govergment has grnated far-right Finance Minister (and Minister within the Defense Ministry) Bezalel Smotrich the authority to oversee construction in the occupied territories.
Thousands of new housing units have already been approved this year, at a pace that could break construction records in the West Bank. These developments reflect the true balance of forces in the government and apparently also Netanyahu’s decision to veer rightward and prioritize the demands of his coalition over the expectations of the international community.
This week a report leaked about Netanyahu’s intention to organize himself an invitation for an official visit to China as a response to U.S. President Joe Biden’s reluctance to invite him to the White House. This looks like a childish and risky ploy in light of Israel’s huge security and diplomatic dependence on Washington. But the maneuver may have worked. David Makovsky, the experienced and well-connected researcher from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, tweeted on Wednesday that the White House is likely to invite Netanyahu to visit toward the end of the year.
In the meantime, the Americans’ condemnations of the events in the territories have been rather weak. The Palestinian Authority, for its part, is making no secret about its approach. People close to PA President Mahmoud Abbas recently told Israeli officials that Abbas has no intention of doing anything to help Israel in Jenin and Nablus, despite the declarations of an imminent IDF operation in the northern West Bank if the chaos and terrorist attacks resume.
The PA leadership believes it has no reason to assist Israel, given the Israeli government’s refusal to engage in diplomatic negotiations with the PA, complete neglect of the two-state idea and the expansion of the settlement enterprise. Israel is invited to fend for itself.
The military operation in Jenin will probably take place in the end, even without the PA’s aid. This operation may be triggered by a severe terrorist attack or subsequent incidents. Earlier this week, a video circulated on TikTok documenting an attempted rocket launch, which appeared to be relatively crude, from a location near Jenin.
The explosive devices being employed against the IDF and the Border Police have evolved to become more sophisticated, powerful, and lethal compared to those used in the previous year. There is a growing concern that the next progression could involve the use of exploding drones. Recently, in Jaljuliya, an Israeli Arab town near the Green Line, such drones were utilized in an attempted assassination related to a criminal feud.
However, it is worth noting that the roads in the West Bank are still considered a vulnerable aspect of Israel’s security. Movement along these roads is susceptible to shooting attacks, particularly during nighttime.
Sinkhole syndrome
In response to the uptick in so-called security incidents, the IDF has deployed five more regular battalions in the West Bank in the past two weeks. The army is still having a hard time imparting to the junior command level the notion that it is their duty to take action to stop violence by Jews, too. That was the difficulty Halevi referred to in his remarks at the training base this week.
After a soldier from the Givati infantry brigade was filmed last October beating a Palestinian from Hebron who escorted a delegation of Israeli left-wing activists, Central Command revised the pre-mission preparatory process for battalions that are sent to carry out routine security duty in the West Bank. Soldiers take part in simulations of handling Jewish rioters and demonstrators, and then undergo another round of preparation during their service in the West Bank.
The core of the present settler violence lies in the outposts in the Shiloh Valley, where two of those who were killed in the attack on the neighboring settlement of Eli live. In the worst pogrom, in the village of Turmus Ayya, about 200 people took part, according to the Shin Bet. An IDF unit was in fact guarding the village, but the mass of settlers simply outflanked it from a different direction and went in unhindered.
On Saturday, in the village of Umm Safa, west of Ramallah, Israelis threw a Molotov cocktail at a house in which a woman and children were present. They were rescued unharmed. Most of the rioters were from the area of the Yitzhar settlement and from the Shiloh Valley, who had come to reinforce the settlement of Ateret following clashes with Palestinians after the murder at Eli.
Most of these settlers fit the description of “hilltop youth” in terms of age and place of residence. But soldiers on furlough were also among them. The big difference lies in the number of participants and in the timing of the assaults. What used to be done by small groups under cover of dark, was done last week in large groups and in broad daylight. And we’re not talking about graffiti being scrawled and windows smashed, but about the deliberate torching of houses and cars, attacks on mosques and attempts to do bodily harm.
Security sources told Haaretz that it’s perfectly clear thar the rioters believe they will receive backing from politicians, including from within the government, if they are arrested. Gallant on Wednesday signed off on administrative detention orders (incarceration without trial) for four settlers who are suspected of involvement in the violence. A few more such orders will likely be issued in the coming period. Some of the rioters drove in cars on Shabbat in order to take pat in the violence, even though they are religiously observant. That raises the question of whether a rabbi was in the picture and gave them a halakhic go-ahead on the dubious grounds of pikuah nefesh, a life-and-death matter.
But overall, the main problem regarding these young people is lack of authority: on the part of parents, on the part of rabbis and on the part of the local leadership in the settlements.
The Shin Bet is probably the world’s only internal security service in which a field coordinator (in the Jewish division – Palestinians don’t get this treatment) can call the father of a rampaging youth and urge him to come and collect his son from the outpost. The frequent reply: You deal with them, we’ve given up.
All the security deployment in the territories, says a senior IDF officer, is intended to protect the Israeli citizens. From the point of view of the security establishment, that was the situation on the ground there since 1967. “But what we’re seeing now is an ongoing clash between Jews and Arabs, in which the Palestinians also must receive steady protection from the settlers, and the existing order of battle is simply insufficient. We will need to double it,” he estimates.
Another officer describes the military presence in the territories as a “sinkhole” – a mission that is drawing more and more attention, resources and forces at the expense of every other military task, however important.
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