Together, let’s confront violent settlers in the occupied West Bank

Like every morning, there was tension.

It crackled in the air like static electricity. There was so much going on lately that only a fool would venture into the hills unsuspecting.

The sun was already high, spreading its warmth in the quiet of the countryside. We could hear the sound of animal bells, the whistles of men and boys to call the dogs.

Up the hill opposite was the Jewish settlement of Rotem. Not far from there was an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) post, there to protect the settlers.

Anyone looking down will see the gathering at Ahmad Daraghme’s house: the Palestinian shepherd, the Israeli activists who support him, the foreign journalists with their cameras.

Ahmad was in conversation with a 71-year-old Jewish man who regularly accompanies the shepherd into the hills, despite the violence and harassment.

A man who, I sense, will not back down from any fight he deems just. “When I am convinced that my positions are right, I am ready to fight for my convictions. Call that stubbornness? Okay,” says Gil Alexander.

He is part of the Jordan Valley Activists, a group of Israelis committed to protecting Palestinians. They accompany shepherds to and from pastures.

Maybe settlers will appear around al-Farisiyah this morning, maybe not. The harassment has been more frequent since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping 251.

Settler violence that has been going on for years in the West Bank is escalating dramatically, aimed, according to Palestinians, at driving settlers off their land.

According to OCHA – the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs – there have been More than 1,000 settler attacks on Palestinians since Octoberwith at least 1,390 people – including 660 children – displaced.

These attacks have often been accompanied by deadly violence. OCHA has recorded 107 attacks resulting in Palestinian deaths and injuries, and 859 attacks resulting in material damage to Palestinians.

Thousands of Palestinian-owned trees and saplings have been destroyed. Farmers like Ahmad describe how access to water for families, crops and livestock is regularly blocked or limited.

International attention has focused on Gaza, but the scale of settler violence has prompted the US, EU and Britain to impose sanctions on some settler leaders and, for the first time, against entire settler outposts.

Jordan Valley activists understand that the important thing is to remain calm, no matter the provocation.

Gil Alexander knows what the colonists are capable of, even when they don’t resist. He has the scars to prove it. But this morning, he’s optimistic.

“A day like this makes me feel good,” he said. “If we can prevent attacks, it gives me great satisfaction.”

Gil has become a good friend of Ahmad Daraghme, who has been harassed on several occasions. Ahmad accuses the Israeli army and police of siding with the settlers, a claim confirmed by numerous reports from Israeli and Palestinian human rights activists.

Pointing to the hills around him, all the way to the main road, Ahmad explains: “The problem is… all this land is off-limits to us. This hill is off-limits, all this land is off-limits to us. This situation is a real disaster: whether we have permission or not, they always create problems for us.”

We climbed up the hills, over rocks and ravines, until a valley opened up beneath us. The ground was auburn, covered with dry stalks of freshly cut corn, good fodder for the hungry sheep.

Ahmad was ahead of us on his donkey, leading the herd to pasture, as his ancestors had done for generations.

A mountain deer flashed through the heat haze and disappeared. The image was of a pastoral paradise. In reality, it is a fierce battlefield.

Last December, Gil Alexander and another activist were with Ahmad when settlers attacked the town last night. They were severely beaten and tear-gassed.

In an incident elsewhere in the valley, Gil collapsed to the ground while trying to stop a settler from dispersing a Palestinian herd.

He is constantly under threat. His status as a very religious Jew exasperates the settlers, who believe that the West Bank, the ancient lands of Judea and Samaria, belongs to the Jewish people.

Gil is the son of French Jews and immigrated to Israel at the age of 20. His father fought in the French Resistance against the Nazis. “I feel like a representative of a humanitarian religious Judaism,” Gil says. “There are few of them in Israel today.”

Palestinians like Ahmad Daraghme have lived under occupation since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Since then, more than 160 settlements have been built in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, and are home to approximately 700,000 Jewish residents. There are approximately three million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

For Gil Alexander, who describes himself as a Zionist, Israeli territory should stop at the 1967 borders. Any settlement in the West Bank should only exist with the consent of the Palestinians.

“We can love this land without being its owners, its sole owners… In order not to constantly hold back the local population by force, we should cede part of this land, in the hope of being able to access it freely later.”

According to Gil, only this approach can prevent “the national-religious conflict that has existed for 100 years, since the existence of Zionism, between the Palestinian population and the Jewish population.”

Although Gil believes that “nothing is impossible,” such an idea seems far-fetched in the bitter political context of the present.

Israel is now facing the most right-wing government in its history. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu depends on the support of pro-settlement parties for the survival of his governing coalition.

Recently, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke of “mega-strategic” measures aimed at expanding settlement activities with government funding.

Three weeks ago, the government declared nearly 3,000 acres in the Jordan Valley “state land” — the largest such area in three decades.

The statement follows a similar statement regarding nearly 2,000 acres in the area in March.

The International Court of Justice, the highest court of the UN described the Israeli occupation as a “de facto annexation” and in violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination which condemns “racial segregation and apartheid”.

Ahmad Daraghme knows how it works on the ground.

Speaking of his former pastures, he says: “All these spaces, all these places, we are not allowed to go there. Some have been planted with olive trees. Some have become reserved areas… They want us to leave this area. They want to be here. They don’t want us to be here.”

The political dynamic is on the side of the settlers.

The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, recently voted 68-9 to reject the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, on the grounds that it “would pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region.”

Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Israeli security control over the West Bank is essential to the country’s security.

For someone like Shai Rosengarten, people like the Jordanian Valley Activists are “radicals” who should stay out of the West Bank.

He says that “the settlements in Israel are very important, because we believe that in Israel we must connect to our heritage.”

Coincidentally, like Gil, he is descended from Holocaust survivors.

His grandfather came to Israel from Poland in the years following the war.

Shai is a leading figure in the Zionist organization Im Tirtzu, which supports the settlements. He believes that settler violence is the work of a minority. The problem, he says, is human rights activists, whom he calls “radicals.”

“We consider them radicals and we consider that their activity disrupts military activity. So it is very bad for the region.”

I asked Shai if what he really meant was that it was bad for the settlers?

“No, I mean they’re disrupting military activities. Of course, they’re trying to harass the settlers, but they’re also trying to harass the soldiers. And we have many examples of these kinds of activities happening in front of Israeli soldiers, and, you know, putting their cameras in their faces.

“And you know, it’s very, very damaging and it’s very bad for the Israeli soldiers who have to focus on what’s going on.”

Gil categorically rejects such a characterization and maintains that he defends true Jewish values.

He is part of an Israeli minority that has little political influence at the moment. But standing in the shade of an acacia tree, with Ahmad rounding up the sheep and goats to pen them for the night, Gil Alexander insisted there was hope for a peaceful end to a conflict that he said had no military solution.

“We have no choice… War, it is obvious, will bring us nothing. From war to war, we are weaker and weaker… Even our strength has its limits.”

With additional reporting by Haneen Abdeen.