Looking into the "thousands of incidents" of “settler violence”, here is what I found.
The UN office called OCHA, the one that produces the "settler
violence" statistics international media loves to quote, has an internal
database of incidents. However, one has to accept you cannot see it. OCHA has
locked it behind a registration process that does not actually let anyone
register.
The organization Regavim obtained the internal spreadsheet the database
is using and analyzed it. Case by case.
Here is what you should also know. OCHA itself relies heavily on data
from B'Tselem, a left-wing Israeli human rights organization. B'Tselem is the
source I analyzed independently last week. My analysis showed that B'Tselem's
database includes active terrorists killed while committing attacks and files
them as victims of settler violence.
So, on the left, B'Tselem is manufacturing the same statistics. On the
right, Regavim is doing the exposé. And in the middle, OCHA is refusing to let
anyone see the raw data. Until OCHA becomes transparent, this is what we have
to work with. And what we have is damning.
OCHA filed 8,332 incidents leading to injury "involving Israeli
settlers" between January 2016 and April 2023. Seven and a half years of
data.
Here is what is actually in those 8,332 UN incidents.
* 2,047 of them are actual violence by Palestinian Arabs against
Israelis. Nearly a quarter of the "settler violence" database is
Palestinian attacks on Jews. The UN files it in the same folder.
Which leaves 6,285 cases against Palestinians. Sounds terrible. Then you
look at what is actually in them.
**1,704 cases happened in Jerusalem, not in settlements. Not by settlers.
In Jerusalem, a city with a mixed population where any friction between Jews
and Arabs gets thrown into the settler-violence bucket.
**1,361 cases involved Jews visiting the Temple Mount or clashes between
Israeli security forces and rioting Muslims. Zero settlers involved. Filed
under "settler violence" anyway.
**1,613 cases were complaints about "entering land" — meaning a
hiker walked somewhere a Palestinian claimed as his. No physical assault. No
property damage. No violence at all. Someone took a walk. Filed as settler
violence.
**96 cases were state infrastructure projects. Israeli government
road-paving and construction. No settlers involved. No violence. The state of
Israel building a road is officially "settler violence" in the UN
database.
**2,039 complaints alleged property damage or assault with no physical
injury. Which is not what a database of injuries inflicted by settler violence
is supposed to contain in the first place.
Add it up. Take out Jerusalem, take out the Temple Mount, take out the
hikers, take out the road-paving, take out the complaints without injury.
You are left with 833 incidents. Out of 8,332. JUST 10% and that
ten percent still contains problems.
**404 of the remaining 833 are listed as "involvement in a
clash", meaning two people fought and the UN could not determine who
started it. Not settler violence. Two-way friction.
**117 more are attributed by the UN itself to Israeli security forces,
not to settlers or civilians.
**Dozens more are actually Palestinian terror attacks in which the
attacker was shot in self-defense by the Jewish target. A stone-thrower shot
after wounding a driver on Route 60. A rioter killed by a driver after his car
was smashed. An attacker who stabbed a guard at Karmei Tzur and was shot by
another guard.
The UN files these as settler violence against Palestinians. The
Palestinian was the attacker. The Jew defended himself. And in the UN's
database, the Jew is the perpetrator.
There are traffic accidents in there.
A Palestinian worker bitten by a dog at his workplace. Filed as settler
violence.
Let me say this clearly.
The UN office that shapes global discourse about "settler
violence" is running a database in which more than 90 percent of the
entries are a blatant lie.
Jerusalem incidents. Government construction. Hikers. Palestinian attacks
in which the attacker was shot in self-defense. Traffic accidents. Dog bites.
And they will not let you see the database, because if you could see it,
the entire international narrative about a wave of Jewish settler violence
would collapse in an second.
The UN is not a neutral data source. Until they open their database to
public scrutiny, they are a bad actor, producing statistics designed to smear
an entire population.
Every headline you have ever read about "settler violence"
traces back to numbers like these. Every foreign minister who has ever quoted
UN data on the West Bank is quoting this.
Ten percent real. Ninety percent invented.
Until OCHA opens the database, this is what we have to work with. And
what we have is enough.
