As Israeli settlers ramp up violent attacks on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, often as Israeli forces stand by, denunciations are mounting in the US, even from Democratic legislators and public figures who are typically staunch defenders of Israel.
In recent days, dozens of settlers have torched homes and vehicles and attacked Palestinians in apparently coordinated attacks. Since the start of the month, Israeli settlers and police have killed at least 10 Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, including two young brothers and their parents as they returned from a Ramadan shopping trip.
Ritchie Torres, a New York Democratic representative and one of Israel’s staunchest advocates in Congress, wrote in a statement this week that “the crisis of extremist settler violence in the West Bank must be confronted, and the perpetrators must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”. He called for “zero tolerance for violent extremism, no matter what form it takes”.
Torres is facing re-election, and his opponents have made his support for Israel a central part of their campaigns.
Daniel Goldman, another pro-Israel Democratic representative seeking re-election in New York, also condemned the violence, which he called an “outrage”. He urged Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, to bring to a vote proposed legislation seeking to impose sanctions against those “undermining prospects for a two-state solution by committing illegal violent acts”, and criticized the Trump administration for rescinding sanctions against a number of violent settlers that the US government issued under Joe Biden.
“This violence is anti-democratic and unacceptable,” Goldman wrote. “The Israeli government must hold those responsible accountable, as the rule of law requires.”
Torres and Goldman have received millions in campaign support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac. But voters have become increasingly critical of the Israel lobby, with several candidates distancing themselves from it and pledging not to accept its contributions.
Other Aipac-backed politicians to condemn settler violence this week included Ruben Gallego, an Arizona senator who called on the Israeli government to “stop being complicit”, and Greg Stanton, an Arizona congressman who called the attacks “acts of terrorism”. Shontel Brown, a Democratic congresswoman of Ohio, accused Trump of “green-lighting settler violence”.
“This has to stop,” she said.
Jacky Rosen, a Nevada senator, another recipient of Aipac funding, said in a statement that “violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank is a national security threat to Israel and must be treated as such”.
Outside Congress, Chris Cuomo, the pro-Israel television host, commented “WTF?!” in a post sharing news about the attacks. The Maga pundit Batya Ungar-Sargon wrote: “The Israeli government needs to crack down on this sickening settler terrorism right now.”
A Guardian analysis published on Wednesday found that Israel has not mounted any prosecutions of its citizens for killing Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank since the start of this decade. Settlers often work in concert with the army to mount their attacks.
Even as US-Israeli military cooperation is at an all-time peak with the joint war on Iran, US public support for Israel has plummeted. Earlier this month, an NBC News poll found that two-thirds of Democrats say their sympathies lie with Palestinians over Israelis – a dramatic shift with significant implications for the party as primaries and midterm elections approach. Republicans remain much more supportive of Israel, with 68% saying their sympathies lie more with the Israelis.
No Republicans appear to have commented on the latest string of settler attacks.
“Israel’s backers in the United States, especially among liberals and Democrats, understand how much of a political liability supporting Israel has become,” said Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel program at Arab Center DC.
He added that politicians backed by pro-Israel donors but facing an increasingly pro-Palestinian electorate are “trapped between the money they’ve relied on to make their campaigns work and the voters they actually need to win”.
He believes that condemning blatant settler violence is an easy way for them to express some discontent with Israel without rattling donors. “It ostensibly offers these Democrats a way to condemn the actions of Israelis against Palestinians without challenging the Israeli state itself.”
Aipac did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for the group, told Politico that “efforts to push pro-Israel Democrats out of the political process are alarming and fundamentally undemocratic”.
It’s not clear whether the Trump administration has raised the recent settler attacks in talks with its Israeli counterparts. Earlier this week, a rightwing Israeli publication reported that JD Vance had a heated exchange on the matter on a call with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But a spokesperson for the US vice-president denied the report, calling it “completely false”. The White House and state department did not respond to a request for comment about the violence or any discussions about it with Israeli officials.
A United Nations report issued this month warned that the Israeli government has accelerated the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last year, forcibly displacing about 36,000 Palestinians. It found that violence accelerated last year “with Israeli authorities playing the central role in directing, participating in or enabling this conduct”.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
