There has been renewed and intensified attention on the occupied West Bank this week, as settler terrorism against Palestinians continues unabated. Some claim that this violence has surged post-ceasefire, but in truth, it has been escalating for years, long before October 7.
The brazen behaviour of these settler terrorists is not a product of a ceasefire; it is the result of years of being emboldened under successive Israeli governments that have done nothing, or far too little, to stop them.
While the violence has now reached a point where even some of Israel’s political leaders can no longer ignore it, statements of condemnation, no matter how forceful, are insufficient. Words do not stop lawlessness, nor do they protect those living under terror.
Israeli security officials have acknowledged on national television that soldiers and police face limits on enforcement due to a policy “from above.” This makes clear that the problem is not rogue actors but a permissive system that allows, excuses, and ultimately fuels the violence.
The prevailing belief that the attacks stem from a fringe minority is dangerously off base. Increasing settler violence is not the work of “a few bad apples” but part of a deliberate and powerful apparatus aimed at pushing Palestinians off their land and creating “facts on the ground”—a de facto annexation that expands Jewish settlement deeper into the occupied West Bank.
Earlier today, a coalition of Israeli anti-occupation and human rights NGOs attempted to provide protective presence to Palestinians during the olive harvest. The action was planned weeks in advance; busloads of Israeli Jews and diaspora allies travelled to the West Bank in solidarity. Yet they were stopped by the IDF and told the area was now a closed military zone.
Notably, not every Israeli vehicle was turned back. Settlers who live there, and who routinely harass, attack, and intimidate Palestinians, were permitted to pass freely. Those who came to stand in solidarity and physically protect Palestinians were the ones barred. Once again, this exposes not an isolated problem but a full system of oppression designed not only to harm Palestinians but to obstruct the Israelis who dare to oppose that harm.
It’s possible that, in negotiating the ceasefire, the US administration chose to overlook the West Bank, or even made concessions behind the scenes. But what is becoming undeniable, even among Israel’s staunchest defenders, is that the West Bank cannot be separated from Israel’s broader political reality. A stable ceasefire, let alone progress toward normalization, cannot happen without fundamental, systemic policy changes in the occupied West Bank.
It is hard to overstate how dangerous the impunity afforded to these settler terrorists has become. The violence not only devastates Palestinian communities, it increasingly shapes Israel within the Green Line.
From police brutality at protests to growing repression of free speech, it is becoming harder to argue that Israel remains a democracy, even inside the Green Line. It is a misconception to say that Israel proper is absorbing the West Bank. In reality, the occupied West Bank, its unchecked lawlessness, its supremacy, its messianism, is seeping into and overtaking Israel.
It threatens everything we value about Israel and everything we believe Israel can be. It threatens to replace democracy with authoritarianism, secularism with theocracy, freedom with repression, equality with supremacy, and Zionism with messianism.
At a moment when the region is shifting and new opportunities for normalization are emerging, Israel is not being excluded, it is choosing to exclude itself.
When Netanyahu describes Israel as a “super Sparta,” or when the political Right insists Israel is a “nation that dwells alone,” these are not inevitabilities. They are deliberate choices by a government willing to sacrifice global integration for the sake of its messianic agenda.
Israel is not without agency. In its sovereignty lies enormous power. Every action and every inaction is a choice made by its leaders. And if nothing changes, if Jewish terrorism continues unchecked, and if Israel becomes an isolated, authoritarian state facing growing threats, it will have only itself to blame. It would mark the greatest failure of the Zionist project since its inception.
There is a better path. A more secure, more diplomatic, and more humane path. One that curbs violence and terrorism, pursues a two-state solution, prioritizes diplomacy over militarism, and takes risks for peace rather than risks that fuel extremism.
And the responsibility for choosing that path lies not only with Israel’s leaders but with all of us in the diaspora who still care deeply, who still see ourselves as stakeholders in Israel’s future, and who still believe that a better future is possible.
As Rabbi Avi Dabush, Executive Director of Rabbis for Human Rights, said after his buses were stopped earlier today: “We’re here, stronger than ever. We’re not giving up on Israeli society or on Judaism.”
The only way up is not to give up. The only way forward is to push forward. And the only way to do that is together.