In recent weeks, a surge in settler violence in the West Bank has begun to capture the attention of an Israeli public that has largely remained indifferent to the devastating civilian toll in Gaza. Since January, Jewish extremists have killed seven Palestinians — most of them impoverished shepherds living on land long targeted by hilltop youth. These killings are only the most visible expression of a broader pattern of harassment and dispossession that has already driven thousands of Palestinians from land they have lived on, farmed, and grazed for decades.

One of the most shocking incidents occurred just last week. According to multiple witnesses, men, women, and children were handcuffed, beaten, stripped, and sexually assaulted. Reports of this attack have reverberated across parts of the religious Zionist community, prompting rare and urgent responses.

Yehuda Gilad, head of Yeshivat Ma’ale Gilboa, visited one of the affected villages alongside Rabbi Avidan Freedman, who has long warned of escalating settler violence. In a public letter, Rabbi Gilad described a “deeply unsettling experience,” comparing what he heard to the pogroms endured by Jews in exile, and asking: “Have we become like the worst of the nations?”

His words are deliberately piercing — an attempt to break through a thickening wall of indifference among both Israeli and American religious Jews.

Other responses have been more cautious. A group of rabbis from Gush Etzion condemned the attacks, but emphasized the damage they cause to the settlement movement’s reputation. Eyal Zamir, the IDF Chief of Staff, called the violence “morally wrong” and strategically harmful, stressing that the perpetrators represent only a minority of settlers.

These condemnations matter. Violence should be denounced wherever it occurs. Any reduction in harm is meaningful. Palestinian shepherds should be able to graze their flocks without fear. Farmers should be able to harvest their olives. Children should be able to travel to school and play outdoors safely. Today, none of these basic dignities can be taken for granted. Even Jewish activists engaged in protective presence — through organizations such as Bnei Avraham, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Mistaclim — have been assaulted.

And yet, focusing solely on the perpetrators risks missing the larger reality.

Settler violence is not an aberration. It is a symptom.

The deeper problem is the system that enables it: a decades-long, state-sanctioned, funded, and militarized occupation.

Since the Six Day War, Israel has controlled the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and, until 2005, Gaza. International law acknowledges such control when it is temporary. It requires the occupying power to administer the territory for the benefit of its residents while preserving the status quo.

That is not the reality today.

More than 700,000 Israeli Jews now live beyond the Green Line, in settlements, outposts, and cities across the West Bank. Separate road systems, the security barrier, and a complex permit regime fragment Palestinian life. While the Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in certain areas, Palestinians remain subject to Israeli military law and are denied basic political rights. Freedom of movement is severely restricted. Administrative detention allows imprisonment without trial. Building permits are nearly impossible to obtain, rendering homes perpetually vulnerable to demolition. Land and resources – water, electricity, and territory – are routinely diverted to serve settlements.

Even a more humane administration of this system, providing security, economic growth and stability, would not resolve its fundamental moral failing. Benevolence cannot justify permanent domination.

The principle at stake is simple: all people deserve equal rights and dignity.

Israelis and Palestinians, both rooted in the land, are not going anywhere. The question is not whether they will share it, but how. Whether through two states, one “state of all its citizens,” a confederation (A Land for All), or another framework, the future must be built on equality — not control.

For those of us in the United States, this is not a distant issue.

We can support organizations working toward human rights and accountability, including Bnei Avraham, The New Israel Fund, ACRI, and Yesh Din, to name just a few. But beyond financial support, there is a deeper responsibility: to challenge the moral discourse within our own communities.

We must confront racism, reject notions of Jewish supremacy, and resist the normalization of a reality in which Palestinians are systematically dehumanized. We must abandon the illusion that the occupation can be “managed” indefinitely through military force and periodic escalation.

Shortly after 1967, the Israeli thinker Yeshayahu Leibowitz warned that “the occupation corrupts.” He foresaw that the moral cost would not remain confined to the territories but would erode the ethical foundations of Israeli society itself.

His warning now reads less like prophecy and more like diagnosis.

The rise in violence, the coarsening of public discourse, and the increasing normalization of extreme rhetoric all point to a fundamental problem beyond any single incident or group of perpetrators.

Condemning settler violence is necessary, but it is not sufficient.

If we are serious about justice, security, and Israel’s moral future, we must confront and work to end the system that makes such violence possible.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)