West Bank Story
July 4, 2025 – ח׳ תַּמּוּז תשפ”ה
After 637 days of war, we are praying and hoping that the negotiations for a hostage return deal that would bring this war to a close will be successful, and that we will see a return of hostages as soon as possible. The 12-day war with Iran seems to be behind us, and commentary and speculation will continue as to how successful it was and what will be both the short and long-term ramifications for Israel and the U.S.’s campaign to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
While focus has been on Gaza and Iran (and all the cities and areas in Israel affected by Iranian missile attacks), the pressure cooker that is the West Bank has been boiling over. At the end of last week, dozens of Israeli settlers launched a violent attack on the Palestinian town of Kafr Malik, north of Ramallah—targeting residents, damaging property, and even clashing with IDF soldiers who intervened. The illegal outpost at the center of the violence—unauthorized even by Israeli law—was taken down by the army later that night. In response, settlers rioted against a nearby army base and police station. The fact that they turned on Israeli soldiers led to rare public condemnation, including statements from Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz. Nonetheless, little has been done in the past years and decades to enforce the rule of law and arrest those Israeli settlers who break it.
The West Bank, like the Wild West, has been a lawless area. There, soldiers and border control officers have never been able to wrap their heads around the fact that the Jews are often the ones attacking, and the perceived enemy, the Palestinians, require protection. Of course, there is no shortage of terrorist cells in the cities and villages that populate the West Bank. Despite not always making the headlines, the IDF has been operating in coordination and cooperation with the Palestinian Authority to weed them out. But Jewish terrorists have been carrying out routine harassment, theft, and “price tag” attacks with little or no recourse from the authorities.
The events of the past week are “a clear-cut case of ‘הַגֹּלֶם קָם עַל יוֹצְרוֹ’,” explained Rabbi Arik Ascherman in a late-night/early-morning phone call this week. Using a Hebrew phrase that literally means “the Golem has risen against its creator,” but more colloquially refers to when something ‘blows up in your face,’ or is the opposite of what was planned. Ascherman, an Israeli-American Reform rabbi and long-time peace activist, has dedicated his life to standing up against this type of violence against Palestinian civilians and protecting Palestinian human and civil rights in the West Bank, pushing back against Israeli military rule. He has a storied personal history of putting himself in harm’s way to protect innocent people against wanton violence, at times coming at great physical danger to himself. He assured me that he does not have a death wish, but also does not shy away from showing up in the middle of “very violent and unruly people” whose hatred for him is unmasked despite their masked faces.
The “golem” in this story is the Settler Movement. The lack of a clear policy and decision-making since 1967 allowed those who advocated for full civilian settlement in Judea and Samaria (i.e. the West Bank), after those territories came under Israeli control in 1967, to establish facts on the ground and patiently but persistently advocate for their annexationist agenda.
“Yes, this moment does feel different,” explained Ascherman, “but it did not happen overnight.” The settler violence from those whom we often refer to as “Hilltop Youth” (but, as Arik points out, are not all youth) is a product of five significant milestones.
The inflection point was the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel took over and ruled the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula (including the Gaza Strip), and the areas known by settlers as Judea and Samaria and by those who question Israeli sovereignty there as the West Bank of the Jordan River. While many Israelis regard the 1967 War as a miraculous and astonishing military victory, others in the Religious Zionist community regard it with much deeper messianic meaning. It was the atchalta De’Geula, or the burgeoning of the messianic era, in which redemption was nigh. It represented a breaking point in Orthodoxy when many use halakhic arguments to prioritize the importance of the acquisition of all the Land into the State of Israel above all else.
Second, the Oslo negotiation process led to a significant division of the West Bank into areas A, B, and C, and ignited massive resentment and resistance from the growing settler community. Oslo provoked many to “grab” hilltops, set up “farms,” and bring more and more people to establish facts on the ground that would become obstacles to the “land for peace” model.
Third, the election of the current government and Netanyahu’s return to the premiership after the November 2022 elections included 14 mandates from the joint ticket of the extremist Religious Zionism parties, led by Ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich. They went from zealous settler activists outside the Israeli political mainstream, who defended those on trial for terrorism and who once chained themselves to illegal outposts, to being responsible for the police, the country’s finances, and the Defense Ministry. They now give official government sanction to those who turn a blind eye to the harassment, theft, and attacks on Palestinian civilians and villages in the West Bank.
The fourth was October 7, 2023. The Hamas attack on the Gaza envelope gave fuel to those who have said all along that the barbarism of Hamas represents the desire of all Palestinians, and that there can never be an independent Palestinian State. “I thought maybe that after October 7, there would be a change in the Israeli population who cared about Palestinian human rights,” explained Ascherman, “but in fact, the opposite happened.” There is more to be said on this, and it is essential to understand the profound impact that this day and the ensuing war have had on the West Bank.
Lastly, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2024 was a welcome change for the Settler Movement. On day one, he removed the sanctions imposed by the Biden administration, reversing the freeze of monetary assets held in U.S. banks. Trump’s far more permissive approach also marked a significant deviation in longstanding U.S. policy that West Bank Israeli settlements are a violation of international law.
How do we understand the phenomenon at play here? It is essential to acknowledge that the “Settler Movement” encompasses a diverse population. Most Jewish residents of the West Bank are not violent activists. Many are there for economic opportunity (similar to those who move to the suburbs in North America), and there are many who are there out of ideological and religious conviction, but who condemn the use of violence and do not identify with the zealous extremists carrying out these attacks.
What is the Settler Psyche?
“They [the zealous extremists] really are deeply and truly Messianists. They have replaced any sanctity of human life and have disregarded the notion that every human being is created in the image of God, in exchange for a singular focus on [what is known in Hebrew as] גאולת האדמה or the ‘redemption of Land’.” This has, according to Rav Ascherman, “turned into absolute idol worship.” We as Jews do not elevate material things over the sanctity of human life. We especially must eschew the view that non-Jews, namely Palestinians, are not seen as human beings.” This is a common theme among extremists, and the pure racism of some of those with power is highly problematic.
What is Their End Game?
When asked what he thinks is the end game of this particular group of Settlers, it is very clear. They are following the ideology and strategy of Ze’ev Hever, also known as “Zambish,” the secretary-general of the Israeli settlement movement Amana. On February 20, 2021, Hever acknowledged that Amana had established more than 30 settler “farms” in the West Bank, and he explained that the impact of these farms is much larger than their built-up area, as the herds kept there require extensive grazing land. The settlers’ farms, Hever explained, “have more than twice the area of built-up settlements… each farm can guard an area of thousands of acres,” and he promised to establish 10 more farms in the coming years. Hever was right, and indeed, the new farms, through violence and with the help of the Israeli military and police, manage to take control of many of the last grazing and agricultural areas available to Palestinian communities. Operating mainly in the South Hebron hills and a string of Palestinian villages known as Massafer Yatta, as well as in the Northwestern Jordan Valley, the goal is to increase the violence to force Palestinian communities to flee and fold up shop as their shepherding or access to agriculture (specifically olive harvesting) no longer will be viable as grazing lands will be taken over. The violence toward olive harvesters will scare them from coming to harvest.
Not Everyone Sees It This Way…
The billboard overlooking the dry and barren Judean hills landscape reads:
“Residents of Binyamin
SALUTE THE HILLTOP YOUTH
We strengthen the pioneers at the frontline of the Settlement”
It’s a simple yet profound message. The usage of the word חלוצים (pioneers) is easily associated with the
“pioneers” of yesteryear, those who came during the 2nd Aliyah (1904-1914) and believed in socialism, working the land, and together laying the foundation for the future Jewish State.
Conservative journalist and political commentator Naveh Dromi put it this way:
“This disparity stems from how settlers and hilltop youth are viewed by Israel’s security institutions and much of the public, who fail to understand the critical importance of the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria – the biblical terms for the West Bank, and the pioneering role these communities play. They are the modern-day equivalents of those who drained swamps and plowed land before the founding of the state, risking their lives in the fight for the Land.”
It’s not a new argument. Ari Shavit illustrated the question in his 2014 book My Promised Land, comparing Kibbutz Ein Harod with the community of Ofra in the West Bank. He asks if today’s settlers in the West Bank are the natural evolution of the pioneers of the early 20th century, who built the kibbutzim and instilled the agricultural and socialist foundations of the future state. He concludes, as I do, that they are not. But many do, such as the Dromi above, the “Israel Guys”, and many more. Israeli society is increasingly divided over this very issue.
Yesterday, ahead of PM Netanyahu’s visit to Washington D.C., there was a call from the Likud party to push for complete annexation of the West Bank. Justice Minister Yariv Levin expressed it this way:
“I think that this period, beyond the current issues, is a time of historic opportunity that we must not miss. The time for sovereignty has come; the time to apply sovereignty. My position on this matter is firm, it is clear,” the issue must be “at the top of the priority list.”
When asked if he sees any way out of this, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, took a long breath. “I know that everyone always asks about hope and looks for a nechemta (a word of consolation). But right now, we’re in a very dark and precarious position.” In this missive from over a month ago, Ascherman calls for volunteers to come en masse and protect those who are vulnerable and subject to attack. While I don’t anticipate droves of American Jews flocking to the West Bank to become human shields, we need to speak out clearly and forcefully that the behavior of these Settler zealots is neither Jewish, Zionist, nor even reflective of being a human being. That Itamar Ben Gvir threatens to do everything he can to prevent the remaining hostages from returning home is not only un-Jewish, it is inhumane.
As a Palestinian activist once told me: Be Jewish.