The Most Predictable Place On Earth
A historic settler killing spree unfolds in the West Bank. Who could've seen it coming?
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When I was ambushed by a mob of settlers in the Turmus’ayya olive fields last October, I predicted that Israeli authorities would respond with a token arrest designed to absorb international outrage over the viral footage, while leaving the terror network itself, led by the notorious settler Amishav Melet, intact.
That is exactly what happened. Three weeks after the attack, Israeli authorities arrested a single settler, Ariel Dahari, charging him in connection with the brutal clubbing of a Palestinian grandmother.
Meanwhile, Melet’s outpost—the operational hub of the regular attacks on Turmus’ayya—has only expanded. In footage from that day, you can see a large, beautiful house perched above the olive groves. Look on the left-hand side of the below video. (For new readers: that is me in the black shirt, running from a lynch mob of settlers.)
This past week, the daughter of the Palestinian-American who owns that house reached out to tell me that settlers had officially moved in. Here they are, making themselves at home:
To spell it out: Israeli authorities responded to a widely publicized act of settler violence by allowing the perpetrators’ base to expand. As part of that expansion, settlers have now stolen and occupied the home of an American citizen. The U.S. Embassy has declined to offer the family any assistance.
Frankly, it’s not hard to predict what will happen in the West Bank if you’re paying attention. In November, I wrote about a dangerous road cutting through Umm al-Khair, the Bedouin village where Awdah Hathaleen was shot dead by a settler months earlier:
The Carmel settlement sits at the top of a hill in South Hebron, with several roads leading to it. Lately, settlers favor the one that cuts directly through the tiny Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair—the scenic route, if you will. The road splits the homes from the community spaces, so children often play in the street. In the US, there would be speed bumps, stop signs, warnings that children are at play. Here, the Palestinians know if they put these up, the Israelis would tear them down. I watched a mother drive a minivan full of children at least 50 miles per hour through the village, honking at the Palestinian kids to scatter like they were sheep in the road.
Everyone in the village knew it was only a matter of time before a child was hit by a car here. On Friday, it happened:
The five-year-old girl was hospitalized, but is okay.
I don’t know whether the driver meant to hit her. Israeli authorities called it a traffic accident. What’s the difference? What is the point of denying a street busy with children a speed bump if not to make an “accident” inevitable?
The young Jewish American activist who documented the incident is in the process of being deported by Israel. Next time, they hope, no one will be there to document it.
Settlers have ensured that every aspect of life in Umm al-Khair is tenuous. Pairing this with routine, overt violence, they hope that families will eventually pick up and leave—something more than sixty communities have done since October 7.
For settlers, this is a form of recreation. Again, from my piece about Umm al-Khair:
Another time, two settlers on an ATV slowed down and called out, “How do you like your new neighbors?”
The “new neighbors” are the settlers, led by the infamously violent Shimon Attia, who broke off from Carmel in August to plant an outpost just meters from the village community center. The land isn’t any richer than up on the settlement. The view is no better. There’s no practical reason to move in—except to torment the Palestinians next door. In settler logic, this is as good as beachfront property.
Just look at this group of settlers and reservist soldiers that took a field trip to a Palestinian village north of Hebron for target practice:
They’re having fun! And had somebody been shot and killed, you can bet the settlers would have claimed self-defense.
As this video made the rounds on X, the settler activist Elisha Yered shared a response: “A video in which any reasonable viewer can discern that it involves a group of hikers who were guarding the skies, hiking in a place that, according to the antisemitic Arabs… Jews are forbidden from entering, and therefore they were attacked by Arabs.”
Just a group of hikers guarding the skies! It would almost be funny if they weren’t killing Palestinians at a historic rate.
Here is Yered again, describing an incident on March 7 in Susya, a tiny village in Masafer Yatta left exposed after the army declared it a “Closed Military Zone,” barring activists while allowing settlers free access:
“A serious terror attack took place this Shabbat against a Jewish shepherd in the Hebron Hills:
Initial details indicate that about ten armed Arab rioters wielding clubs attacked a Jewish shepherd in the grazing areas adjacent to the Susya settlement in the Hebron Hills at midday on Shabbat.
An IDF soldier who rushed to the scene carried out a suspect apprehension procedure toward the rioters and saved the shepherd’s life, according to Yesha Rescue Without Borders.
Later, the Arabs reported that one of the rioters was killed by the gunfire during the attack and his companion was seriously injured. The shepherd was miraculously only lightly injured and was evacuated to Soroka Hospital.
Police forces that arrived at the scene located evidence left behind by the fleeing rioters, including several of the clubs used in the attack.”
Now, here is what actually happened: