The United States wants Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly condemn a siege imposed by extremist settlers on two homes in a Palestinian village in the West Bank, US and Israeli officials said on Friday, as the siege continued for the sixth day with no clear end in sight, and with the reason for the lack of enforcement against the settlers unclear.

Netanyahu has remained silent since the settlers first established an illegal outpost outside the homes of two Palestinian families in the Nablus-area village of Qusra on Sunday, and throughout the past three days of failed attempts by security forces to remove the settlers — who were characterized by Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday as “hilltop youths.”

While the siege has not drawn any considerable criticism from the Israeli political echelon, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee — a strong supporter of Jewish settlement in the West Bank — condemned the settlers behind it on Thursday as “Israeli terrorists.”

Washington began to protest after learning that the home of a Palestinian-American was among those under siege, said the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions of which they had knowledge. Neither Netanyahu’s office nor the White House immediately responded to Reuters’ request for comment.

On Friday afternoon, there was fresh political outrage after an armed settler was filmed firing into the air and then aiming his weapon at Palestinians and left-wing Israeli activists near Bethlehem.

The question of enforcement

Katz, who had thus far refrained from commenting on the situation unfolding in Qusra, announced on Friday that he had instructed the IDF to draft a plan for transferring civilian law enforcement powers in the West Bank to the Israel Police.

As the police are already the body largely responsible for such enforcement in the West Bank, the announcement was met with skepticism by legal and enforcement officials.

Katz seemed to be implying he wanted police to be fully in charge of handling settlers and for the military to wash its hands of the issue. Today, the IDF has overall authority in the West Bank, and soldiers are often called to handle security matters relating to clashes and confrontations between Palestinians and settlers, but police are ultimately in charge of enforcing Israeli law and handling any criminal behavior.

The IDF detains Jews only briefly in cases of criminal activity before handing them over to police officers, who often release the suspects without charge, including in cases of rampant and sometimes deadly settler violence.

The statement from Katz’s office refrained from mentioning Qusra or explicitly referring to Jewish extremism, instead proclaiming that the military’s job was to “fight Palestinian terrorism” and protect Israel’s border, not to chase “youths on hilltops” — a common euphemism for settlers who attack Palestinians in the West Bank.

Nor was the IDF capable of “enforcing civilian matters” in the West Bank, Katz said, given the “welcome increase expected in the number of settlers” there due to the government’s approval for dozens of settlements and farming outposts.

Instead, he said, the Israel Police should fight civilian crime in the West Bank, “like everywhere else in the State of Israel.”

Katz claimed that he had directed IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and other senior military officials in a meeting on Thursday to coordinate with counterparts in the Israel Police “to prepare and establish a force suitable for dealing with and handling civil matters.”

Police would be “granted all the necessary powers and budgets” to carry out the mission, the statement........

© The Times of Israel