Bowen: Israeli settlers intensify campaign to drive out West Bank Palestinians

[bythebanksof]

it's very under reported relative to the Hamas horrors, the IDF in Gaza, etc.

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4wwxz12jko

I didn't even read your article. Sorry OP. IMO the BBC is notoriously left wing, I know people that flilm there, have been as a guest to the Green Room etc. It is a shame we as a country do not have a news service that was less left wing, and yes I do resent having to pay a TV licence as I have lived in other countries where state media is openly funded through general taxation, never heard of a TV licence before the UK. I honestly think the whole business with Israel is a bit odd, the best intelligence in the world did not forsee an attack, the tunnels under UN offices in Gaza. It is such a mess and I can only hope things calm down a bit like they did with the IRA, although I wouldn't call them a dead horse.

A

Im glad to see this getting some attention on the BBC at last. The plight of West Bank Palestinians has somewhat faded into the background, given the barbarity in Gaza but they too have been suffering violence and terror from Israel.

A Christian village was targeted recently.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-church-leaders-accuse-israeli-authorities-of-abetting-settler-attacks-in-taybeh/

Its a shame you're turning News on the conflict in the ME into a pathetic argument against the TV license.🙄

Actually more about the bias in the news, but you carry on insulting strangers on the Internet if it helps.

I actually know both settlers and Israelis who are active in the anti-occupation movement. I have firsthand accounts of how the militant ones have ratcheted up the attacks. It is worth knowing that the militants come from specific parts of the West Bank. I don't believe any of the settlements should have been built, and their existence takes Palestinian land, but the majority are not violent. In fact the "noar gvaot" (hilltop youth) who are most notorious are only a few hundred people. But the militants are also the ones who love bragging to foreign journalists.

If you don't like the BBC this is all reported on Israeli media. The extremists know that even when the army want to stop them, they're too busy in Gaza to do it.

Violence - while horrible and escalating rapidly - is by far not the only way in which the settlements hurt Palestinian locals in the West Bank, though, is it?

Because with the settlements also come their "security needs" (which only exist because the illegal settlements do in the first place). So with them come the checkpoints, the "closed military areas", the restrictions on movement, the so-called "bypass roads" (a euphemism for roads on which Palestinians are not allowed - but that dissect their lands and separate their cities and villages). With them also come herders encroaching on Palestinian farmland, settlers hogging the scare water resources, ... you name it!

So, true, a majority of settlers may not be directly violent. But their presence, by its very nature, leads to structuctural violence even when they are not torching down homes, evicting villagers, or throwing rubbish down onto their Palestinian neighbours (as happens regularly to a dear friend of mine living in Hebron).

Could it be different? Sure! But that would require not only an end to rampaging violence but also an end to the structural issues.

Did anyone see the video that Awdah Hathaleen filmed of his murder by Yinon Levi? It's actually unbelievable that such footage exists and the killer got 3 days house arrest but was quickly released by a court after a ruling that the evidence he had fired at Hathaleen had “weakened”.

There is absolutely no doubt watching the video. I know Israel have a long history of 'investigating' and clearing both civilians and members of the military but seeing it so clearly still shocked me.

Absolutely insane! And Levi was hardly an unknown quantity before this: he is personally sanctioned by all of the UK, EU, and Canada.

It is and if it's this bad when the victim is relatively high profile how bad is it when the victim is completely unknown. It really highlights the two tier system, Palestinians held in administrative detention for sometimes for years with no charges, or sentenced to years for throwing stones and this buffoon murders someone on camera and gets 3 days house arrest.

It is such a mess and I can only hope things calm down a bit like they did with the IRA,

Calm down a bit??? Surely you have some grasp of the years of effort that went into achieving a ceasefire and peace in Northern Ireland? The special envoy from the US? The sacrifices that were made on both sides? The referendum? The treaty?

"noar gvaot" (hilltop youth) who are most notorious are only a few hundred people" make senses. It is only a small number of people that do the killing. However, Israel as a democratic society has, for decades, enabled and encouraged ethnic cleaning in the west bank. As a democratic state they could take a different path, but have chosen not too.

Weird post.

It is theft and murder. It is also state sanctioned terrorism just in a different form.

30:40 mins in

I am not even going to say anything.

Seen 'Channel 4 News'? Watch it here on Channel 4:

www.channel4.com/programmes/channel-4-news?cntsrc=social_share_ios_channel_4_news

I don't really have words for that. Jesus Christ. All aided by the Israeli government and the IDF who posters spend their lives on here defending.

It is difficult to believe. All eyes are on Gaza while this murder, theft and false imprisonment is going on in the West Bank at the hands of these settlers and the Israeli state. State sponsored ethnic cleansing and terrorism.

Many eyes are averted.

They do not want to believe that ethnic cleansing, starvation, murder and genocide is happening at the hands of the Israeli government and settlers / by a democratic Western coutry / one of our allies.

Some see exactly what's happening and support it for their own political and religious ends.

But the rest of us? We know what we are seeing. We can't do much, but we can speak out.

This time will pass.
War criminals, some of them, will face justice.
The internet will not forget.

The words of apologists, deniers and those who try to turn this real life, human catastrophe into a Culture war will be exposed.

May their words and actions haunt them forever.

Another Palestinian murdered by settlers today, this time in Duma, near Nablus.

The behaviour of these settlers is particularly shocking because they act calmly self-righteous while they carry out their crimes, then get patted on the back by the IDF.

They are common thugs, killers, bullies and thieves. The IDF are false imprisoners, killers and liars.

Who are these settlers?

Are they Israelis who have always lived in Israel, people from abroad who have moved to Israel, are they only Israeli Jewish or are there Arab Israeli settlers as well?

Do they only attack Palestinians or do they attack other Israelis?

It seems weird that Jewish people in other countries aren’t known for this kind of behaviour - murder, violence, theft etc, but these settlers behave like that.

What is the cause?

It's just awful. It's happening on a daily basis now with no repercussions for the killers. Its a terrifying time to be Palestinian that's for sure. With Netanyahu talking about his fondness of a 'Greater Israel' it doesn't look like it is going to get better for them any time soon.

Who are these settlers?

Self righteous, violent terrorists who believe they have a God given right to murder and intimidate.

Settlers in the Occupied West Bank come from a range of backgrounds. Some were born in Israel and moved into settlements, others are immigrants from abroad.

Notably also: not all settlers are directly violent. Many moved there because the Israeli government offers incentives like subsidised housing, tax breaks, and well-developed infrastructure, making it much cheaper to enjoy a high standard of living compared to inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders. But even when individuals aren’t personally attacking Palestinians, the very presence of settlements is illegal under international law and deeply harmful to Palestinian communities: they take up land, control resources like water, and restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement with checkpoints and settler-only roads.

The violent settler phenomenon isn’t about being Jewish - it’s really about ideology. The settlers who attack Palestinians are driven by an ethnonationalist belief that they have an exclusive right to the land, and that Palestinian existence on their land is illegitimate. This mindset is not unique to Jewish people at all; it’s actually very common in settler-colonial contexts worldwide, where members of settler populations see themselves as entitled to displace and dominate the indigenous population.

So while violent settler attacks are vile and escalating, it’s arguably important to see them in the context of state policy, illegal settlement expansion, and the broader dynamics of occupation rather than as a reflection of Jewish communities globally.

The core of the problem here really is that the state lets them terrorise Palestinians with near total impunity.

A glimpse into the sort of mind effectively controlling Israel so Netanyahu can stay in power.

Calls for Israeli Sovereignty in West Bank as Gov't Advances Controversial Plan
Smotrich vows to 'bury the idea of a Palestinian state' with 3,400 homes in E1. 'They'll talk of a Palestinian dream, we'll build a Jewish reality,' he said, as the plan deepens West Bank divisions and draws global criticism

Israel's government is expected next week to approve construction plans in the E1 area, which would cut off the northern West Bank from its southern regions.

<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/x8l70/www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-07-14/ty-article/.premium/israel-renews-plans-for-controversial-construction-that-would-cut-west-bank-in-two/00000198-09aa-dd18-a7dd-09af207c0000" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The controversial plan, delayed for years under international pressure, has dramatic implications for the prospects of a two-state solution and is expected to provoke sharp criticism worldwide.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised the plan, calling it "a reality that buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there's nothing to recognize and no one to recognize it."

"Those in the world trying to recognize a Palestinian state will get an answer from us on the ground," Smotrich said earlier on Thursday, as he announced the plan's impending approval in the West Bank settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. "Not through documents, not through decisions or declarations – but through facts. Facts of homes, neighborhoods, roads and Jewish families building their lives."

He added, "They'll keep talking about a Palestinian dream – and we will continue building a Jewish reality. A reality that buries the idea of a Palestinian state – because there's nothing to recognize and no one to recognize it."

Smotrich thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that "as far as Judea and Samaria are concerned, he supported and enabled me to carry out this revolution over the past two and a half years."

Addressing Netanyahu directly, he said, "The time has come to apply Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, to permanently remove the idea of dividing the land and to ensure that by September, Europe's hypocritical leaders will have nothing to recognize."

"This isn't just a planning initiative," Smotrich emphasized. "But a resounding Zionist statement: united Jerusalem is our eternal capital, and [the settlement of] Ma'ale Adumim is an inseparable part of it."

………………the article continues. It is in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.