The liberal bourgeois media paints Israelis who live in West Bank settlements as overwhelmingly racists who illegally live on “occupied” land and seek to ethnically cleanse the territory of Palestinians. They don’t say a word about Hamas and Islamic Jihad thugs who have carried out thousands of anti-Jewish terror attacks there since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom.
Most Israelis who live in the West Bank oppose the violence by right-wing extremists who have beaten up Palestinian farmers, set fire to their homes, cars and businesses, poisoned or stolen their livestock or vandalized a mosque. A small number of perpetrators have been arrested, but Israeli soldiers often look the other way.
These anti-Arab attacks are “weakening ourselves,” Rabbi Shaul Judelman told the Times of Israel Nov. 24. He is one of 400 Israeli residents of the Gush Etzion bloc in the West Bank who signed a petition opposing the anti-Palestinian attacks. In Gush Etzion, “there are many Jews and Palestinians who have known each other for a long time,” Judelman said.
“We, residents of Gush Etzion, lovers of Zion and the Land of Israel, feel that we cannot remain silent in the face of the terrible wave of violence in recent weeks,” the petition reads. “These acts stand in violation of the law, morality, and halakha [Jewish law].”
Most of the people in the Elazar settlement where Nechama Goldman Barash, a teacher and petition signer, lives oppose the violence, she told the Times of Israel. But many say the bigger problem is the attacks by Hamas. Even if the numbers of extremists who attack Arabs are small, she said, “we should protest people who are violent in unspeakable ways, so we can confront it and deal with it.”