The Myth of 'Settler Violence'

 

By the end of October some 1900 journalists had descended on Israel to “cover” the war, “Swords of Iron”. However, as time has gone on, they have got fed up with the routine reporting and have decided to look for “other subjects” to write about. The top subject on their agenda is “settler violence”.

 According to police statistics, the number of these alleged attacks had fallen by 50% in the period Oct 7^th to Nov 7^th. However, they all ignored the fact that in June alone before the war started there were 3640 attacks of one form or another by Arabs in Judea and Samaria. So by selectively picking the statistics they want, these reporters present a totally one sided biased view of what is actually happening.

How many violent incidents between individuals in a foreign country warrant the attention and repeated mention of the American State Department, the secretary of State, and the president of the ,nited States of America? To warrant attention from the highest and most powerful people of the world these incidents must be so heinous and so frequent that by their nature they alter the course of global events. 

It’s curious how the “settler violence,” rare and infrequent especially in relation to the daily Palestinian terrorism which occurs in the same region – justifies the attention and repeated mention of the US president. 

There are more than 500,000 Jews who live in the region of Judea and Samaria, the area global nations, media, and activists prefer to call “The West Bank.” The overwhelming majority of these Jews choose to live in these areas for comfort, convenience, or economic advantages. They aren’t ideologues and they’re not violent. They believe they have a right to live in this area just as much as Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. 

Like any population, the Jewish community in Judea and Samaria has its small numbers who are detached from mainstream thought, (outliers), and some can be extreme and violent. This is no different than any other community in the world. Most communities are peaceful and contribute to their cities and countries. Although every community has its criminals, they are outliers. It would be racist to make assumptions about an entire community and claim it has a crime problem because of the few outliers in its community. The same is true of the settler community. It is a peaceful community that contributes to Israel and the world. To claim there is a “settler violence” problem is to vilify an entire community based on the actions of their outliers.