There could hardly be a grimmer demonstration of the challenge facing those who still hope to curb growing violence in the occupied West Bank. This weekend’s talks between Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs in Jordan were undermined within hours. These were the first such high-level negotiations in years, reflecting belated US re-engagement, in the unpromising context of a far-right Israeli government, a moribund Palestinian Authority and surging violence.
Within hours of the summit’s communique, hundreds of settlers were rampaging through the Palestinian town of Huwara with rocks and iron bars, shooting dead one man, leaving hundreds injured and torching cars and properties – retaliation for the murder of two Israeli settlers by a Palestinian gunman earlier that day.
Settler violence is not new. Nor is the army’s failure to stem it. Increasingly, it appears not only widespread, but systemic. It was worsening even before this extremist government took power. But the scale and intensity of this attack – heavily telegraphed in advance – and the fact that coalition members egged it on, make it unprecedented.
“A closed, burnt Huwara – that’s what I want to see. That’s the only way to achieve deterrence,” said the chairman of the Knesset’s national security committee. Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, who also has sweeping powers over civilian issues in the West Bank, liked a tweet saying that “the village of Hawara [sic] should be wiped out today”. (He later deleted it and echoed the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that people should not “take the law into their own hands” – hardly a full-throated condemnation.) Several in Israel have described the attack as a pogrom. Yet only a handful of arrests were made, and police have released all suspects.
Last year was the deadliest in Israel and the West Bank since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, ended in 2005. Israeli forces killed 146 Palestinians in 2022, while settlers killed another four. Attacks by Palestinians killed 29 Israelis. The violence continues. The US reportedly brokered a deal to reduce IDF raids, with the Palestinian Authority – already regarded by many as little more than a security contractor for the occupation – stepping in. Yet last week saw the single most lethal IDF raid for years, as troops hunting three militants in the occupied city of Nablus killed 11 Palestinians.
Sunday’s communique committed Israel to pausing discussion of new settlement units and authorisation of outposts – only for Mr Netanyahu to tweet that “There is not and will not be any freeze”. That made the promise to aim towards a wider political process that could lead to a “just and lasting peace” ring even more hollow. There were around 100,000 settlers in the West Bank when the Oslo negotiations began in the early 1990s; now there are around half a million – and several play key roles in this government. Two months into 2023, more Israeli building in the West Bank has been approved than in the previous two years combined. Support for a two-state solution is at an all-time low.
As hope vanishes, younger Palestinians are turning to groups beyond the control of established factions. Access to guns is growing. The weekend’s talks were spurred partly by concerns that Ramadan, which this year overlaps with Passover, has seen escalating violence in the past. The US and others have seen poor return for the limited efforts they have invested. But Huwara is frightening proof, if any were needed, that this government cannot be left to wreak more damage.
• This article was amended on 1 March 2023. An earlier version mistakenly described Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s president. It also said there were “a few thousand” settlers in the West Bank in the early 1990s, when the figure was in fact around 100,000.
