You know the situation is bad when one of Israel’s staunchest supporters, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, angrily calls out ‘Israeli terrorists.’
The envoy was referring to dozens of settler extremists who entered and took control of Palestinian homes in the Kusea and Jalud areas of the West Bank. In footage seen by The Jerusalem Post, the extremists appear to be dismantling fences, blocking roads, and besieging the area.
According to Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights, residents of the Tell Talpiyot outpost, established in January in Area B, set up a new offshoot of the original outpost on Sunday, in the form of a sukkah near the homes of the two families.
The organization said the settlers imposed the siege that same evening. They blocked the access roads to the homes with piles of stones and, during the night, damaged electrical cables and the connection to the solar panels and vandalized the water pipes.
When the Border Police and IDF forces arrived and began to evacuate, the extremists confronted them, resulting in clashes.
According to Huckabee’s statements on Thursday, “The IDF and police came at our request to remove the Israeli terrorists who are doing this. The actions of those doing this to this family’s home are criminal. Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting. No excuse for such thuggish behavior.”
Huckabee’s comments came after a senior White House official told KAN News that the United States considers that Israel is not doing enough to prevent West Bank settler violence.
According to the KAN report, the official plans to broach the issue with the Prime Minister’s Office and have it explain why the security establishment has not been able to get the situation under control.
Sadly, the answer seems clear: The government has no interest in quelling the extremists and their terror campaign against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Settlers have no motivation to behave
As the Post’s Yonah Jeremy Bob wrote on Thursday: If you are a Jewish extremist in the West Bank and know that the defense minister may support you, along with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who runs the police already supporting you, why not act up?
Bob wrote that “Defense Minister Israel Katz got rid of administrative detention for Jews in January 2025, even though there are over 3,000 Palestinians still in administrative detention… If you will not be indicted and not even get a restraining order, why not fight the IDF and attack Palestinians if you are a violent Jewish extremist? What do you have to lose?”
The “hands off” policy starts at the top. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview with CNN last month, shrugged off the phenomenon of settler violence and deflected responsibility for reining in the extremists by blaming leniency by the courts.
“It’s 150 or so kids, teens who are brought into the West Bank,” he said. “They are not, by the way, part of the settler community. The overwhelming majority of settlers are model citizens – they serve in the army and obey the law.”
It’s true that the vast majority of Israelis living in the West Bank are law-abiding, and their military and volunteer service to the country since October 7 has rivaled and surpassed most sectors of Israeli society. And it’s also true that the issue of settler violence has received a disproportionate amount of coverage around the world, in comparison to attacks against Israelis by Palestinian terrorists.
Extremist violence numbers surge
At the same time, the extremists in their midst are going wild. The number of serious incidents of “nationalistic crime” committed by extremist Jewish settlers in the West Bank surged by 63% during the first half of 2026, compared to the same period last year, KAN reported this week.
According to the report, 660 settler attacks were recorded in the first six months of 2026, up from 405 during the same period in 2025.
Whether Huckabee has any clout with Netanyahu and whether his statements will force the prime minister to act against the phenomenon is unclear.
What is clear, though, is that the issue is foremost on the minds of Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel around the world who ask: How can we defend your inaction against these injustices?
When Israelis go to the polls in October, one of the primary questions they need to ask themselves is whether they want a government that will continue to allow extremism to run unfettered in the West Bank and blacken Israel’s name.
