The barren peaks of the West Bank have been home to shepherds for thousands of years, and now some of those shepherds are behind settler violence against Palestinians.
The struggle for the West Bank is a biblical story. There are two populations – Jewish and Arab, descendants of Abraham’s sons, Isaac and Ishmael – who compete for ancestral lands. The West Bank, located on the west bank of the Jordan River, is home to more than 3 million Palestinians who hope to make it the heart of their future state. It is also home to more than 500,000 Jews who consider the region Judea and Samaria, their biblical homeland.
The region has been under Israeli military occupation for almost six decades. Jewish settlers built communities in the West Bank in hopes of making the land part of Israel.
With two weeks before Israeli elections and the US midterms next month, the way settler violence is handled could soon change.
Driving flocks of sheep into Palestinian communities
Mordehai Minster, who co-founded a sheep farm in the West Bank, is a new type of Israeli settler. His flock is increasingly embedded in the surrounding Palestinian communities.
“When you have sheep, everyone understands. The Arabs tend to fight among themselves for pastures. It’s a language we understand, and they understand,” Minster said. “And it’s a way of demarcating the boundary. ‘This is where I graze my sheep. You don’t bring your sheep here. You don’t plant here. You don’t build here.'”
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Israeli sheep farms have taken over vast areas of land: around 20% of the West Bank. Some 200 sheep farms have emerged in recent years. The settlers even push sheep into Palestinian homes.
“They come in, open the gate of the house and take the sheep inside to eat the trees around the house,” explained Waheed Marsouq, a Palestinian teacher in Al-Mughayyir.
For decades, Jewish settlers have erected fences to protect themselves from the active threat of Palestinian terrorism. Today, it is the Palestinians who are locking themselves away. More than 100 Palestinian communities have been displaced or wiped out by settler violence and the constant invasion of sheep.
“Whenever there are religious and ethnic communities, particularly in the Middle East, fighting over land and resources, that conflict sometimes takes an atrocious turn,” Minster said. “The fact that violence exists does not change the merit of the right we have on this land.”
Who are the Israeli settlers?
Young herdsmen, known as Hilltop Youth, are often behind this violence. They have flocked to the West Bank in search of adventure, and are told they are on a mission to redeem the land. They storm Palestinian fields and villages, cutting down olive trees, burning cars and destroying property, and harassing farmers and livestock. There have been more than 1,600 incidents so far this year, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
There is a group of over 500 settlers, with up to 1,000 more people moving in and out.
“They’re kids ages 15 to 25, I don’t know,” Minster said. “They don’t do very well in school. They don’t get into the military as easily because of behavioral problems maybe. Some of them end up in places like this, tending sheep, working construction. Some of these kids may have drug problems. They smoke weed. They grow weed.”
The American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called settler violence terrorismdescribing him as thug and disgusting.
“I wouldn’t call it terrorism, but are there kids who are overreacting and acting brutally and who need to be controlled and detained? Yes, definitely,” Minster said.
The Palestinians were killed by settler violence.
“Yes,” admitted the minister. “None of this is great and none of this changes the fact that our right to be here is legal and long-standing.”
“This is my land”
That’s not how the Palestinians who live just down the hill from Minster Farm see things.
Mahmoud Faraj’s family has held title to this land for generations. 60 Minutes spoke to him and his cousin Hassan about their village called Jannatah, which means paradise in Arabic.
The name was accurate until a group of 20 to 25 settlers showed up on March 26, entering the Faraj family’s land and setting up a “tent,” Hassan said.
“And they started behaving like they owned everything,” Hassan said.
The Hilltop Youth outpost, which Hassan described as a “tent,” is in his backyard, cutting off access to one of the family’s homes.
“It’s my cousin’s house over there. He’s not allowed to go there at all,” Mahmoud said.
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Israeli settlers are trying to force the villagers to leave, and they are succeeding, Hassan said. Many houses have been abandoned.
“They steal electricity from local residents and also steal water,” Hassan said of the settlers. “That’s their strategy, to make the area unlivable.”
Every time the family tries to approach their house, they say teenagers from the outpost rush in and beat them. In March, Hassan stood trial with his uncle and cousin Muhammad.
“They started attacking us in small groups with wooden sticks and stones. And they used tear gas. And three of them were armed. So one of the armed guys started shooting. He shot my cousin in the head,” Hassan said. “And it didn’t stop there. They came and they started beating my uncle and his son, who was dead, with wood, with wooden sticks.”
The family is skeptical that anyone will be held responsible because only a small number of these cases are prosecuted.
Another day, Muhammad’s brother, also named Hassan, tried to take 60 Minutes to the family’s house. But within seconds, the Hilltop Youth, dressed in their black hoodies, were running down the hill. Soon, the teenagers were preventing Hassan from reaching the house in the distance. The teenagers pushed Hassan, who kept his hands behind his back so he could not accuse him of hitting them.
“This is my land and you will not stay. These are my roots,” Hassan replied in Hebrew.
He was hit again and his nose was broken. One of the Hilltop Youth headbutted Hassan.
Hassan tried to retreat, but was blocked.
Israeli activists protect Palestinians from settlers
Hassan was not alone that day when he tried to go home. He was joined by a group of Jewish activists, called Sons of Abraham, who work to protect besieged Palestinians. They stood between Hassan and the teenage settlers, acting as human shields. The idea is that the settlers would be more hesitant to attack other Jews.
“They try to push us away. They don’t want us to come in with the cameras. So they push and wait for someone to react with their hands, so they have an excuse for more extreme violence,” said Roie, one of the activists.
Most activists, like the settlers, grew up in right-wing religious homes. One of them, Amana, was a Hilltop Youth herself. But Amana, Dvir and Roie say Judaism calls them to protect, not expel, their neighbors.
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Some young people in Hilltop become angry when they see Abraham’s sons.
“I think they are even angrier because we are threatening them ideologically,” Amana said in Hebrew. “And also, I’m not from the outside. I also grew up as a settler. I tell them, ‘I’ve changed my ways. I know what you’re doing and I know it’s not the right path.'”
Sometimes Sons of Abraham and Hilltop Youth recognize each other.
“I think it’s painful for me to see how people I grew up with, and some of them were good friends, behave,” Roie said, acknowledging that they must say the same thing about him.
On the day Roie, Amana and Dvir accompanied Hassan, as things were spiraling out of control, an Israeli army captain arrived with some soldiers.
Ultimately, Hassan was evicted from his own property. Jewish settlers must stay.
The army’s priority is the settlers, and some soldiers are settlers themselves and occasionally join in the violence.
But there were also cases where soldiers were attacked by young settlers.
“People call it ‘settler violence.’ I don’t agree with that,” Roie said. “It’s state violence. There is government violence.”
Political landscape in Israel and the United States
Israel’s elections are in two weeks, and so far the Israeli government has been reluctant to quell settler violence in the West Bank.
THE Trump administration called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address the situation. Netanyahu condemned the violence, but his government also invested tens of millions of dollars in expanding sheep farms, arming them and supplying them with American-made off-roaders.
The US midterm elections next month could also change the political landscape. If Democrats win, they threaten to limit military aid to Israel, in part, they say, because of attacks in the West Bank.
Minister said he was worried about the fate of American public opinion. Although he worries about the potential impact of Israel losing U.S. support, he does not view it as an existential threat.
“I’m embarrassed by the fact that America is turning against us, and we are turning against America. It’s like losing a friendship,” he said. “And I also fear that as a military ally and a political ally, we could lose America as well. It looks like it’s going in that direction. But Israel will find other allies.”
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