Failing in protection of Palestinians in W. Bank?

It has been a problem for years, which spiked in February 2023 and again since October 7: The IDF and law enforcement are weak on cracking down on Jewish terrorism against Palestinians when it does arise.

Since the weekend, there have been at least three such significant incidents, and while the IDF and police are both said to be investigating, it is unclear what efforts were made to prevent the actions of Jewish extremists, making these moves ineffective.

In contrast to the battlefield, where the IDF has robust – if imperfect – mechanisms for reviewing errors or rogue actions against Palestinians, the preventing or prosecution of Jewish attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank often falls into a black hole.

Over the past few days, clashes broke out between Jews and Palestinians, resulting in multiple injuries. The spike came after a Palestinian terrorist murdered 14-yearold shepherd Binyamin Achimair, whose body was found near the outpost he lived on.

Though he was murdered on Friday, his death was only confirmed Saturday afternoon, and the clashes that ensued were the most significant since February 2023.

At the time, at least dozens of extremists burned large swaths of Palestinian property in Huwara in the West Bank, injuring several Palestinians and killing at least one.

The IDF said it had significantly beefed up its forces in the area to try to maintain order, but it was on a significant delay on multiple revenge attacks, including arson.

After Huwara, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi publicly apologized for the slow response and the failure to protect Palestinians. The army would prepare to be better readied for future potential attacks, he said.

One area attacked by Jewish extremists was Duma, a town south of Nablus, while Israeli, Arab, and US media all reported attacks in Mughayir, near Jenin and Nablus; Deir Dibwan, near Ramallah; and Beitin, near Ramallah.

There were reports of Palestinian attacks as well. Many reports noted dozens of arson attacks on cars or structures.

As of Tuesday, the IDF had no update on the violence over the weekend.

Security footage from Saturday in which alleged masked Jewish extremists can be seen entering a garage, pouring gasoline, and then igniting a fire on a white Palestinian car in Deir Dibwan was posted by the human-rights organization Yesh Din on Sunday.

The video appears to show soldiers forming a perimeter around the extremists, as if to safeguard them, with those in uniform able to see the arson but doing nothing to stop it or detain the perpetrators afterward.

IDF Central Command was said to be probing the incident, but as of Tuesday, there had been no progress.

In a third incident, two Palestinians were killed by gunfire during a brawl with settlers somewhere between the settlement of Gitit in the Jordan Valley and Akraba, near Nablus, on Monday.

The army informed Palestinian authorities that the two victims were Abdalrahman Maher, 30, and Muhammad Ashraf Bani Jama, 21. A third person was wounded in the upper body.

The conflicting reports are not only between Israelis and Palestinians, but also between settlers and the IDF,

about the cause and nature of the brawl and also about who killed them.

One narrative is that the settlers arrived in the area after around 50 Palestinians assaulted a Jewish shepherd with clubs and stones. It devolved and developed into mutual stone-throwing.

The other narrative is that the fighting broke out in a Palestinian-owned agricultural area, with a group of around 50 settlers quickly arriving there. The Palestinian Red Crescent said the army had prevented it from reaching the area.

Settlers claimed they were not responsible for the killings, and that the army arrived and found itself in a “life-threatening situation,” leading to the shooting.

The IDF repeatedly denied this, both on Monday and Tuesday, saying it was not even present in the area when the deadly confrontation occurred, and that when it arrived, a few settlers fled immediately.

Part of the problem in these situations is that when the IDF arrives, it does not detain those present as a starting point to preserve the option of learning their identities for further investigation. Rather, the military’s goal is to break up the fighting and not to investigate, meaning that any crimes committed beforehand by either settlers or Palestinians are much more easily hidden if the perpetrators flee and there is no video evidence.

The IDF said soldiers simply fired a few shots into the air to disperse the crowd, and at no point did they feel threatened.

Following the dispersal, troops claimed to have heard more gunshots nearby. They then rushed to the scene and found the two dead Palestinians on the ground.

The police opened an investigation, but they had not arrested any suspects and provided no update as of press time on Tuesday.

On March 31, the IDF accidentally killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in an incident spread over seven different action points. By the next day, despite Gaza being a war zone far more complex than the West Bank, the IDF had already admitted fault and produced significant details.

By April 5, it produced a completely thorough report of all errors and communications at several separate IDF bases.

This means that when Israel is motivated enough, it can produce quick probe results even for complex issues.

The country’s legitimacy is in the balance – whether in the Gaza war, battles with Hezbollah, or future conflict with Iran.

For reasons both ethical and national, taking a more serious and rapid approach to addressing these lawless incidents could make a significant difference.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.

have seen more than 7,000 acts of antisemitism, far more than any previous year. And the report says that even if all Israel-related incidents were removed, antisemitism still rose 65%.

“Antisemitism is nothing short of a national emergency, a five-alarm fire that is still raging across the country and in our local communities and campuses,” the CEO of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement. “Jewish Americans are being targeted for who they are at school, at work, on the street, in Jewish institutions, and even at home. This crisis demands immediate action from every sector of society and every state in the union.”

To combat the rise in hate, the ADL is calling on governors to implement strategies to counter antisemitism in state-level programs analogous to the White House’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism released last year.

The report shows that even before October 7, antisemitism was on the rise. From January to the beginning of October, there were 3,669 antisemitic incidents – close to the total for the entire previous year.

But the pace of incidents accelerated rapidly after October 7. Just over half of them – 52% – directly concerned Israel. The pace did not die down as the weeks passed following October 7. The ADL found that there were 1,813 incidents in October, 1,575 in November, and 1,938 in December.

The total number of post-October 7 incidents, more than 5,200, is far higher than the 3,283 incidents tabulated during nearly the same period in a preliminary ADL report that was released in mid-January. The number of incidents grew much higher, an ADL spokesperson said, because law enforcement agencies and other groups that track hate take time to compile their tallies.

The ADL altered its methodology after October 7 to include in the tally “certain expressions of opposition to Zionism, as well as support for resistance against Israel or Zionists that could be perceived as supporting terrorism or attacks on Jews, Israelis or Zionists.”

One example of that, the group said, were images of hang gliders – which Hamas terrorists used to infiltrate Israel during the October 7 massacre. Another was the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a common chant at pro-Palestinian rallies that many Jewish groups see as a call for the destruction of Israel.

The updated methodology accounted for 1,350 incidents, around a quarter of the post-October 7 total, including 1,180 rallies.

Over the whole year, 3,162 incidents, or 36% of the total, involved references to Israel or Zionism. That was a steep increase over 2022, when 241 incidents, or 6.5%, included anti-Israel sentiment.

At anti-Israel protests, the researchers cited antisemitic tropes, including accusations that Jews control the media or US government, that Jews were involved in the 9/11 attacks and accusations that Israel “harvests” Palestinian organs or imagery showing Israelis drinking blood, which the researchers linked to historical blood libels. Other speakers at protesters called Israelis and Zionists “bloodsuckers”

or “parasites,” the report said.

At least one high-profile incident of harm to a Jew did not make the report. While the report tallied 161 incidents of antisemitic assault, it did not include the death of pro-Israel protester Paul Kessler because the circumstances are still under investigation.

Orthodox Jews, who tend to be more readily identifiable as Jewish, were targeted in 34% of assaults, despite, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, making up around 9% of the Jewish population. Previous ADL reports have also found that Orthodox Jews are disproportionately victims of assault.

Nearly 2,000 incidents targeted Jewish institutions including synagogues, Jewish community centers, and schools, a spike of 237% over 2022. The increase was partly due to a surge in bomb threats, mostly targeting synagogues. There were 1,009 bomb threats, up from only 91 in 2022.

On campuses, antisemitic incidents skyrocketed from 219 in 2022 to 922 last year – most of which occurred post-October 7. The updated methodology accounted for more than a third of that total. In non-Jewish K-12 schools, antisemitic incidents also more than doubled.

White supremacist propaganda also surged, with 1,160 instances last year, compared to 852 in 2022. Most of those incidents were distributing fliers with antisemitic messaging. White supremacist groups also latched onto the October 7 attack with propaganda that said “Death to Israel” and “End Jewish terror.” The most prominent of these groups was the Goyim Defense League, which was responsible for 529 instances of antisemitism.

California had the most recorded incidents, with 1,266, followed by New York, with 1,218, and New Jersey, with 830.

The report came a day after pro-Palestinian groups lashed out at Greenblatt and the ADL after he compared keffiyehs, or Palestinian headscarves, to Nazi armbands during an interview with MSNBC. More than 60 Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian groups signed a letter calling the comments “hateful” and “dangerous.” The campaign echoes previous efforts urging civil rights groups to “Drop the ADL” as a partner.

The ADL, which has also faced criticism from the Right in recent years, says it does not favor one side of the political spectrum over the other. It says it adheres to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which has been endorsed by hundreds of countries, local governments, universities, and corporations and has drawn criticism for classifying some Israel criticism as antisemitism.

ADL researchers compiled the data using information from victims, law enforcement, the media, and partner organizations. The incidents include both criminal and noncriminal acts in public and private settings and online incidents of harassment in cases of direct messages and some social media settings. “Sprees,” such as multiple instances of antisemitism at a single event, were counted