It took an Oscar winner’s ordeal for the world to see the truth of settler violence. This is how to stop it
The Palestinian film-maker Hamdan Ballal, centre, welcomes visitors after his release from detention, Susya, occupied West Bank, 26 March 2025
Ofer Cassif MK writes in The Guardian on 27 March 2025:
Imagine a group of a dozen armed men storming your village at nightfall. They assault you and your neighbours, throw stones at your house, beat you. If you try to defend yourself, or document the violence, they attack you. When the military arrive, they detain you. Some of them join in with the violence. This harrowing scene is not a story from Tsarist Russia or Jim Crow America. Last Monday, this was exactly what occurred in the Palestinian village of Susya in the occupied West Bank.
The attackers who arrived in Susya were neither Cossacks nor Klansmen but Jewish-Israeli settlers accompanied by soldiers. Indeed, when the attacks commenced, three Palestinians were seized by the Israeli military, detained, and then subjected to police interrogation. Such violent raids are far from unique in West Bank, especially in the areas of South Hebron Hills, Masafer Yatta and the Jordan river valley. Since the start of this year, the Centre for Jewish Non Violence has documented more than 40 violent settler attacks in the village of Susya alone.
Most go unnoticed by the rest of the world. But this time was different. One of the Palestinian victims was the award-winning director Hamdan Ballal, whose film, No Other Land, which covers the destruction of Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank, won best documentary at the recent Academy Awards. For hours, the military didn’t officially disclose his whereabouts, and attempts to locate him failed. When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) finally issued a statement, they absurdly labelled him and his fellow villagers terrorists.
This facade of justice, when law is nothing but an empty shell, is typical of how the Israeli occupation works. Under its veneer of legality, the most brutal savagery is legitimised and the role of criminal and victim inverted. In the past three years I have submitted numerous complaints to the Israeli Ministry of Defence and Israel’s attorney general about settler violence. Nothing has ever happened. My experience is only one of many that indicates how the Israeli legal system makes a farce of justice and allows settlers to terrorise Palestinian communities with impunity.