← Call Me Back - with Dan Senor
Call Me Back - with Dan Senor
The Rise of Settler Violence - with Rabbi David Stav and Nadav Eyal
00:51:43
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A
You are listening to an art media podcast.
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B
When I see youngsters that burn cars, that throw stones on people that haven't done anything to them, the first feeling and the ultimate feeling is being embarrassed by these people that actually represent my nation, represent my religion, and people that are doing things that are against the Jewish law, against the Israeli law and against their moral values.
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It's 9:00am on Sunday, December 27th in New York City. It's 4:00pm On Sunday, December 27th in Israel as Israelis get ready to wind down their day. This morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departed Israel for Florida, where he is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump and his national security team at Mar? A Lago. Netanyahu is planning to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials to discuss the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire efforts and regional security cooperation. On Friday, near Beit she an in northern Israel, a Palestinian terrorist carried out a march multiphase attack involving vehicle ramming and stabbing that left two civilians dead. Mordechai Shimon, 68 and 19 year old Aviv Maor. Two others were wounded before the terrorist was shot, wounded and captured. During a protest in Tel Aviv over the weekend, former Police Chief Ronnie Al Sheikh sharply criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu following following new developments in the Qatar gate scandal. Al Sheikh accused cabinet members of failing to protect Israeli national interests, claiming that Netanyahu's handling of links with Qatar and other issues betrayed the public trust. Now onto today's episode. In recent months, images and reports of violence by Jewish extremists in the west bank have circulated widely. Sometimes stripped of context, sometimes weaponized, and often deeply painful to watch, this episode is not an attempt to flatten a complex reality or ignore the very real threat of Palestinian terrorism that Israelis live with every day. But it is an attempt to look at a different problem, one that challenges Israel from within. And I should add that this question of extremist settler violence in the west bank is a question we get almost every single week on Inside Call Me Back. One way or the other, when we're going through all these questions, we get this question a lot. And the questions usually come from the diaspora. And rather than just try to deal with it swiftly in a back and forth and Inside Call Me Back, we decided to dedicate an entire episode to the topic. The topic is that complex that it warrants a wide ranging conversation. And for that we're joined by Rabbi David Stav, Rabbi Stav, who is a leading voice in Israel's national religious community, and arch media contributor Nadavael, who has closely tracked these events through his sources in Israel's security establishment. Our goal is to understand how widespread this violence is, put it in context, what drives it, and what it means for Israeli society and for Jews around the world. But before today's conversation, a word from our sponsor. For more than a century, the Technion has been powering Israel. Its graduates helped build the nation's roads and bridges, its water systems and electrical grid. You could draw a direct line from the Technion to the development of Israel's high tech sector. Today, as Israel recovers from the devastation of war, it needs the Technion more than ever. Technion scientists are developing new energy sources, sustainable food and water solutions, and breakthrough medical therapies, creating innovations for a better world that will also boost Israel's economy. You want to make Israel safe and strong. By supporting the Technion, you're investing in the people and the ideas that will help rebuild Israel for a better future. Because rebuilding isn't just about restoring what was lost. It's about creating what. What comes next. The Technion helped build Israel. Now the Technion is rebuilding Israel. Join us visit ats.org rebuild Nadav and Rabbi Stav, thanks for being here.
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C
Thanks for having us.
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B
Thank you.
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A
Rabbi Stav, I want to start with you. You come from Israel's national religious community. Over the course of the past two years, we have seen a growing number of documented incidents by extremists in the West Bank. When you look at this, can you give us a sense of what concerns you most?
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B
Actually, I feel embarrassed when I see youngsters that burn cars, that throw stones on people that haven't done anything to them, or sometimes even hit soldiers of the idf because many times they don't distinguish between people that belong to that side or another side. But the first feeling and the ultimate feeling is being embarrassed by these people that actually represent my nation, represent my religion, and people that are doing things that are against the Jewish law, against the Israeli law, and against their moral values. Now, I guess we'll have time to go deeper, to understand the phenomena and how big it is. But when I see these pictures, I feel embarrassed.
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A
So, Rabbi Stav, before we dive deeper into this, the term settler, as though it's just a single group, there are Israelis and then there are Israeli settlers. A very broad stroke is applied to categorize what is, I think, a little more complex and differentiated than just one single category of settlers. So can you. This'll take a moment, but I think it's important just to set the table here, can you briefly map out the different communities and the ideologies that under the label. And obviously this in and of itself could be its own episode. But I do want to set this up.
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B
I will make it very short for the Hamas and for the Palestinians. All the Jews that live in the State of Israel are settlers. For those who live outside Israel and some of the Israelis, those who live in the territories that were captured, that were released in the 1967 war, all of the people which are today above half a million people, they are called settlers. But among these settlers, there are hundreds of thousands people that are regular citizens and inhabitants that go to work and are very moral. And I would say that 99% of what we call settlers, people that live in these areas of Judea and Samaria or the territories that were occupied in 1967, 99% of them are people that never touched an Arab or never dared to curse an Arab. And most of them are very good people. There is a very small group, most of them are kids that did not finish high school. And these people decided out of a kind of a very extreme ideology to settle certain places in the territories. And they, in many times they want to have this clash with Arabic society because they believe that the Israeli government is not doing enough to defend the regular settlements and is not doing enough in order to prevent Palestinians from entering to different territories that belong to Jews, etc etc, because of several reasons. They try to take control on different areas, even if it requires violence or clashes between them and the Palestinians. We are talking about a group usually between the ages of 16 to 20. Most of them were not drafted to the army because they are not considered to be people that the army wants them. It's a group that belongs to the edge of the. Most of them of the religious Zionist movement. But most of them don't see any authority of the religious Zionist movement as their authority. So we're talking about a very, very small group that unfortunately causes a lot of damage.
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A
So I just want to do a little bit of history here and then I want to get to the different groups. Now, people hear the word settler or settlement for many decades in Israel's history, there were governments of the governments of the left that supported settlement. In fact, from 67 to 73, many of the settlements that were built was viewed as a strategic security agenda.
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C
Right?
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B
The word settler in Hebrew could be translated and I guess Nadav will be able to do it better than I could be translated to two different words. One has a negative meaning and One has a neutral meaning. If you translate it to Hebrew, to the word mityashev, which means settling, it has a very positive meaning because all the Israelis were settlers since we arrived to the land of Israel in the middle of the 19th century. But those people that settled the land after 1967, in the territories that were occupied or released in 1967, when they are called settlers, that it's translated in Hebrew to the word mitnachel, which to certain groups has a negative meaning. But this expression applies to all the settlers that live in the 1967 territories.
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A
Okay, so, Nadav, can you give us the landscape here of the different groups currently in the settlement movement in the West Bank?
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C
Yeah. So, first of all, I want to say something about how controversial was the settlement movement. Actually, it was extremely controversial from the beginning, and it turned to be less controversial after 1967. The government made the formal decision that Judea and Samaria would be held as a sort of a card towards peace negotiations. And every new settlement, for instance, the Park Hotel in Hebron, those who remember that, or Sebastia, every single one of these issues under the labor government was highly problematic. It was a huge story. So basically, if you look at the map, until 1977, very few settlements. The return to Bushetion, for instance, that was part of the Jewish community before 1948, was a consensus in the Israeli spectrum also of labor to a large extent, because of what happened in Gush Etion, because of the massacre of labor governments. You mean of labor governments. But it was begging in the Likud government. That begging said very famously, Rabbi Star remembers this. We will have a lot of Elon Moray. Elon Moray is one of the first settlements. So he promised, indeed, he made true to his promise. He formed a lot of settlements that supported by the government in the late 1970s, 1980s. That was a peak period, by the way. The person leading much of it was Ariel Sharon. And as time grew by, and even today, the settlement movement has become much more legitimate. So if we're talking about numbers, this began in 1967 with hundreds, and it is today many hundreds of thousands, mostly concentrated in the big building blocks in the West Bank, Ariel area, Gush Etion, Male Adumim, but also much smaller communities that are less urban, if you want to put it this way, all are very much suburban in their nature. Now, as to the complexion of the settlement movement, just one thing, Nadev, before.
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A
You get into that, also, many of the settlements you're describing, again, when we talk about settlements, some of These settlements are just within a few hundred or a few thousand feet of what our listeners would know of is Jerusalem. It's like almost like a suburb of Jerusalem.
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C
No, but remember that in Jerusalem, Jerusalem has been expanded and under law, it's been annexed. And when it was annexed, it took a lot of territory around it. So usually when we say settlements, we're not talking in the area of closeness to Jerusalem. But you're absolutely right, Dan, that there are many settlements on the Green Line. What we call the Green Line is the area separating between Israel of 1948 and the area occupied after 1940, 1967, there would be hundreds of meters from the fence. For instance, to our listeners in the Modiin area, okay, I should say legally that Israel never annexed Judea and Samaria as whole. It did annex the Golan Heights. It annexed East Jerusalem, and it gave itself a lot of territory in the area of East Jerusalem. So it can expand. Never annexed Judea and Samaria was always a project of the settlement movement. It almost culminated before the Abraham Accords. Netanyahu promised to annex at a certain point to have some sort of annexation. Then the Abraham Accords came and went. Now to the question itself. As Rabbi Stav said, there is the mainstream, the leadership of the settler movement. And there. There was a change since 2005. Before 2005, before the disengagement, this was very mainstream. Working with the Israeli governments very in tandem, there was a change of generations there. Today, it's to a large extent more right wing, more expansionist, I would say, to some extent, less Mapiniks, as we would say it in Hebrew. But the leadership of the settler movement is very much entrenched into the Israeli government and to Netanyahu, you know, to say settlers today, the people who work in Netanyahu's office, it's the ministers, it's the general, because the settlement community has grown so much. And there's a difference between someone who lives in Gush Etion and someone who lives in a very small, isolated community that is considered more extreme by some people. There is a difference there. Now there is the Hilltop Youth, or what we call the Hilltop Youth, and what the Shin Bet calls terror groups, which are these people that Rabbi Star said at the beginning that he's ashamed of. And today they would say, in terms of activists, my security sources would say a few hundred people that are operating there has sort of mushroomed to something wider. How do we see this, for instance, in an event at the village of Jit that happened back in 2020, 4. More than 100 people armed, are storming a Palestinian village. At least one person Palestinian is killed. Shin Bet officials call it a pogrom. So if you have in a single event so many people, they would say it might be larger than these few hundred peoples. Now, the hilltop youth is, as the rabbi said, they don't accept the authority of the State of Israel, and they attack the IDF itself. And when I say attack, if you look at the data supplied by the idf, you see attacks every week against soldiers, not only against Palestinians. What's an attack against soldiers? It's not that they're shooting soldiers. I want to be clear about that. Although the defense apparatus is very fearful that it will escalate. They're throwing stones. They rip up tires of IDF jeeps. They put blocks on the road not to allow the idf. Or they might hit IDF soldiers or IDF officers. They definitely harass them, try to intimidate. That's the soldiers. Another issue is the attack on the Palestinian farmers. And that's the major issue, the attack on Palestinians, which the rabbi mentioned. Now, on the major settlement movement and the hilltop youth, there are 50 shades of ideology in Judea and Samaria. You have, for instance, the Khardalim, Khardal in Hebrew is a combination of the word ultra Orthodox Haredim and religious Zionists. And between them there is Rabbi Tao, who's to some extent more close to the haredim. That doesn't mean, by the way, that they are hilltop youth. It's a different shade of the settlement movement. And you also have the new generation of settler that. How should I put it, are much more lenient towards the idea of expansion, of taking land, any way that you look at it. And everything then changed after October 7th. After October 7th, everything became much more aggressive. The idea that is very prevalent in Judea and Samaria, in settlements, is that what happened in October 7th can happen to us and that the Palestinians that are in the olive groves, picking their olives, are collecting intelligence towards October 7, an attack against our settlement. And the reason that it's so prevalent is because there are many terror attacks against Jews in the West Bank. It cannot be denied. And therefore, this idea has become much more engaged. And you hear people like Yossi Dagan, who's one of the mayors of the settlements, talking about this intensively. And that's the new generation. So I mapped three or four groups here.
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A
Okay, Rabbi Stav, any reaction or comments on Nadav's landscape here?
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B
Two short comments.
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A.
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It's true that Rabbi Tao is one of the Leading voices, rabbis in the right wing, extreme, ultra datiliumi, ultra religious, Zionist. But he will never, none of his followers will never dare to touch an Arab or an Israeli soldier, because one of his very fundamental principles is the sanctity of the State of Israel and the fact that we are in the middle of a process of redemption and therefore is very loyal to the government and it tries to be very, very moral. So he doesn't belong to that group. The second thing that I want to say is something that I guess Nadav will confirm. He spoke about the expansion. I would like to be more specific. There are the hilltop youngsters. That's one group. And there are the farms. The farms is a phenomena that expanded right after October 7th. The farms are places where the leadership of the settlers put their one or two families that control a whole area to allow Israelis to bring the ship there or to plant olives or to plant other orchards in order to have control on empty territories under their control. Today we are talking about tens of farms that control hundreds of thousands of acres. This is a phenomena that expanded right after October 7, but it has almost nothing to do with the hilltop youngsters, because this is actually encouraged by the idf because they say, well, these people actually help the army to have control on certain areas, that without them, we don't have control on that area. Versus the hilltop youngsters that don't accept the authority of the state, don't accept the authority of rabbis, and don't accept authority in general.
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A
Okay, so I just want to understand who is responsible for enforcing Israeli law in these areas. In these cases, when the hilltop youth, or the hilltop youngsters, as Rabbi Stav calls them, meaning these extremist, strident group that in the west bank are sparking this violence, who is responsible for shutting it down and enforcing the law? Is it the idf? Is it the Israeli police? Is it the Shin Bet who.
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B
Look, I think you touched now maybe the biggest problem, because until two or three years ago, it was very clear that there was a kind of cooperation between the police and the Shin Bet services in order to make sure that this kind of phenomena could not expand and could not exist, and people were taking care of that. Today, unfortunately, this cooperation is not functioning as it worked in the past. I dare to say that the police, I don't know if they are, if somebody gives them orders, but actually doesn't try to hold back these people or to put them in the right place behind in prison. Today, actually, the government sees what happens there, and politicians are afraid to touch it. It's like hot potato that the politicians and the commanders of the army and of the Shin Bet and of the police don't know exactly how to deal with this and therefore the phenomena expense.
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C
Yeah, I would go further than that. First of all, the police is controlled by Itama Ben gvir, who is a Kaana disciple and was convicted for various incitement and other offenses. So if we're talking about the Hilltop Youth, Itama Benvir, who was once videoed in front of the car of Yitzhak Rabin, of the late Yitzhak Rabin, just before he was murdered, saying, we go to the car, we'll get to the man. He is the original Hilltop Youth, by the way. He, of course, lives in Kirat Aba. But that's not material. What's material is that he's responsible for the police. Now, let me give you an example, Dan, why there is no reinforcement of the police or there was no reinforcement of the police. Although I have to say that in the last month, it's improving because Prime Minister Netanyahu has basically said himself that Israel is a law abiding state that needs to take care of these attacks of Jewish. He didn't say, by the way, Jewish settlers said against the attacks against Palestinians and against Israeli soldiers. So the chief officer of the police unit responsible for investigations in Judea and Samaria was investigated in the police himself because he was giving Itamar Benveer, who's the Minister of the Police, data as to investigations against Jewish extremists. And he was investigated in the police because they saw that as a suspected bribery. I will give you the minister data as to investigations against Jewish extremists that plan violent attacks. And in return, you'll make sure that I'll get my promotion. So that's just one example. But generally speaking, if you talk with the Shin Bet, if you talk with the idf, their main frustration is with the police. And it's since Ben GVIR is there specifically that this frustration is there, because the IDF in the west bank, according to Israeli government decisions and law, by the way, is not supposed to arrest Israelis if they break the law. They are under the Israeli law, therefore, it's the police. Now, insofar of the international arena, it's the IDF that's responsible, because this area, according to how Israel sees it, it's held under military rule to an extent. So it's the IDF responsibility internationally, outward facing, inward facing, it's the Israeli police. Now, the Shabak doesn't have a police. The Shin Bet doesn't have a police. So they call the police, they say, look, we know this and this is happening. Prevent it. Send forces. Now it's up for the police to do that. And again, the police is controlled by Ben gvir, and Ben GVIR is very positive towards that. And this also goes to a bigger point, Rabbi Stav, which I wonder, what's your reaction to. My feeling is that you are isolating this to this small group. But many Israelis, I think many of the officers you know in the idf, but also in the Shin Bet, will tell you it's a wider phenomena of support. There is a lot of support group or at least understanding to some of this violence. Specifically after October 7th, I could not.
- [24:54]
B
Deny that there is a big hesitation to criticize publicly these youngsters. And I will confess that I may be one of the very few rabbis that is not afraid to speak loudly against this Finn phenomena. But I don't think that they get support. People are afraid to talk against it, A, because they are terrified. Maybe these people could attack them themselves because there were already places where people that spoke against these youngsters were hated by them, just like officers in the IDF, etc. Etc. So people could be afraid. And B, if you see that certain officers in the government, and maybe, as you mentioned, the minister himself are supporting them. So why should I be more loyal to the law than the Pope? I mean, if the government doesn't care, why should we be more committed to the law than the government? I don't think that the vast majority of the people support it. I think when I talk to them and I talk to the leaders and I talk to the rabbis, almost all of them are very, very sharply against it. But you are right that people are afraid to speak against it.
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C
Yeah. I just want to quote a letter that was sent by the former head of the Shabak Ronen Bar, because people back home were writing us letters, emails, Dan, and are saying we're seeing these videos all the time. For instance, a video from the last week that showed someone driving a vehicle that was hitting on a Palestinian man praying. That's an example. Okay. That was very much on X. Everywhere else they're asking, is this really completely inflated by international media? So, first of all, I want to say for clarity, everything is inflated by international media. And most of the terror attacks in Judea and Samaria are against Jewish Israelis. I need to say this myself. It's not a partisan issue, and we're covering that. But here's the letter from the head of the Shabak from about a year ago. The leaders of this phenomena seek to push the system into loss of control. The damage to the state of Israel is indescribable. This is Renen Barr writing to the government and he is talking about the loss of fear of administrative detention or other tools that were used by the state. The phenomena of the hilltop youth, he's writing, is a campaign to delegitimize the state and to give tailwinds to Jewish terrorism. This is the use of violence to instill fear. It's certainly not national. It constitutes a challenge to the nation state.
- [27:40]
B
I fully agree with the content of this letter. We have to give the broader picture. Again, I'm not protecting, I'm not justifying, I'm criticizing and I'm condemning without any question mark. We have to understand the broader picture. The broader picture is that the settlers themselves complain that many times the army is not there to help them, that the Shabak doesn't help them enough, etc. Etc. So we have to get a broader picture in order to understand that. But one more thing that I want to add to that is that delegitimizing the institutions of the state is a phenomena that we see all over the place. It doesn't begin and doesn't end in Judea and Samaria about the authority of the army. I mean, I don't have to tell you about the Supreme Court, about other institutions of the country that are delegitimized by these certain politicians. And that's a part of that story.
- [28:32]
A
Let's take a short break to hear a word from our sponsor. For more than a century, the Technion has been powering Israel. Its graduates helped build the nation's roads and bridges, its water systems and electrical grid. You could draw a direction line from the Technion to the development of Israel's high tech sector. Today, as Israel recovers from the devastation of war, it needs the Technion more than ever. Technion scientists are developing new energy sources, sustainable food and water solutions and breakthrough medical therapies, creating innovations for a better world that will also boost Israel's economy. You want to make Israel safe and strong. By supporting the Technion, you're investing in the people, people and the ideas that will help rebuild Israel for a better future. Because rebuilding isn't just about restoring what was lost. It's about creating what comes next. The Technion helped build Israel. Now the Technion is rebuilding Israel. Join us visit ats.org rebuild Rabbi Stav I just want to understand the motivation of those waging this violence rather than just the outcomes. Cuz there's two ways, I mean, to think about this violence. I think many, or at least some in the west bank views some of the violence as just, you know, youthful vigilantism. They're vigilantes. You know, there's Palestinian terrorism, there's widespread Palestinian terrorism, especially after October 7th. There's much more alertness, as both of you said, that everything can be seen as an attempt by West Bank Palestinian terrorists to begin gathering intelligence and organizing for future attacks. And of course others, as I think you both are articulating to some degree, or maybe to varying degrees, it's terrorism or pogromism or however you want to call it. So there's two ways to see this. Again, I'm not justifying the violence. I just want to understand what the motivation is, what they're actually trying to accomplish religiously, ideologically, strategically. What's the story, Rabbi Stav, that they're telling themselves when they carry out these acts of violence?
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B
I think the story is a bit deeper than just taking care of security or just even to expand territories. It's a kind of resisting movement against the mainstream of Zionism or religious Zionism that existed in Israel for the last 70, 80 years. Basically, the religious Zionist movement cooperated with the secular movement and together they have established the Jewish state with all the pride that we have for all the achievements that the state of Israel has achieved. But there is a group that sees the picture and analyzes the situation in a different way. And they see the behavior of the government, the behavior of the rabbis, the behavior of the Zionist movement as a behavior of a Western movement that is actually influenced by and maybe financed by Christian money and by other sources that want to secularize the Israeli society and don't want to achieve a full redemption. And they want to establish a different model of a state. A kingdom of Judea is a kingdom that will be following the rules of God. And in that kingdom there will be no place for these compromising voices or these voices of coexisting together, etc. Etc. These are very, very extreme voices. I could tell you that I met one of the leaders, one of the rabbis. I tried to have a dialogue with him. And we both learned in the same yeshiva together. And I asked them, where did you learn it from? Did we learn it from our Rosh Yeshiva? From our rabbi didn't teach us about the moral way that we should treat other people, that we, if we want to remain in the land of Israel and I want to remain in Judea and Samaria. We have to treat the Palestinians in a proper way, in a moral way. And he said, times has changed and today we have to jump to the next level. And the next level is actually a kind of a kingdom that will not be based on the secular, the foundations of the Zionist movement, that the religious Zionist movement cooperated with. These are very, very extreme voices that I really believe that belong to very, very small niche, very small group.
- [32:55]
C
So to add to what Rabbi Stav said, there is an ideology there. I mentioned it earlier, and indeed the idea of the Kingdom of Judea then. And if you remember Jewish history, there was the Kingdom of Israel that disappeared. Then it was the Kingdom of Judea that survived, at least culturally and religiously. And that's the reason we're called Jews. And what they are saying. And I'm both speaking with some of these people, but I'm also following their work. There are specific groups in social network kind of places that you can follow their work according to the Israeli Defense apparatus. I want to be absolutely clear, they are saying on the record, terrorism. This is terrorism. I don't want to whitewash this. What they're saying is Israel is weak, the IDF is weak. Only we can protect ourselves, and we need to be the pioneer in front of the camp. And we will take everything with us. And the only way, they are saying, is to expel all the Arabs. You ask, what is their goal, Dan? What they're saying is expel them all. First of all, expel them from near the settlements, then go on to expel them everywhere from Eret Yisrael. It's all ours. It's all ours is not a new expression. You would hear that from the settlement movement, and Rabbi Stav knows this for many years. But let me give you an example of what kind of actions they do on a daily basis. So I'm on one of these groups, and just in the last 48 hours, I'm looking at the group as we are speaking now, Dan. So they are writing, this person has been arrested by the police that's attacking our youth. Pray for this man who has held for the police. Then there's another message then, and this is a classic message in their groups. Arabs report. It's always the same kind of phrasing. Arabs report that Jews took down, chop down 40 trees of olive in the village of Lukhmus east to Ramallah. This is a classic message. Then a few hours before that, Arabs report that Jews torched a car in Al Jabba near Bethlehem, and they sprayed the graffiti. Revenge. A few hours before that, Arabs report the Jews attacked a car in Bilin. Arabs report the Jews torched a house in Turmusaya, northeast to Ramallah. This is like the last 13 hours. So this is very intensive. And now it also goes to the farm issue that Rabbi Stav raised. Some of these farms are considered by security officials to be legit, and some of them are considered to be sometimes employing people that might be affiliated with the youth. So it's a complex story out there, to say the least.
- [35:56]
B
I just wanted to add, if you allow me to comment, to what Nadav was saying. The spiritual leader of the settlers in Judea and Samaria, which was Rav Zviuda Cook, always said, we have no intention to expel Arabs from the territories. We have a debate, we have a struggle, we have a conflict, which is about the nationality, about the sovereignty. We don't have any debate against Ahmed and Muhammad that want to settle their villages, and we don't want to touch them. In the very famous story of the settlement of Elon Moreh, when the Supreme Court said the settlers should leave the place because it belongs to a private territory, Ravtziuda said we should obey to that because we don't want to expel nobody from its private ownership or from its private territory. So therefore, I want to distinguish between the settlement movement, which was led by very, very clear distinctions between a national conflict and moral rights of each human beings that lives there versus these youngsters that, as you said, Nadav want to expel all Arabs. But let me tell you something, I'm afraid they want to expel some Jews as well.
- [37:14]
C
Oh, yeah, I'm sure they want to expel me.
- [37:18]
A
Okay, Nedavid policy level, has the government's response meaningfully changed in recent years?
- [37:24]
C
Oh, yeah. First of all, since 2023, we have a government that is the most far right government that Israel has ever had, that meets two distinct things that happened. First of all, Itamar Bengvir became the minister responsible for the police, which I guess people listening to this podcast in general, the response I'm getting from the Diaspora is. How should I put it? It's not animosity, it's people are just. And this goes left and right in the Diaspora, react to this in very extreme and I think justified way, because Ben Vere is who he is. He's a Kahana disciple. This was his rabbi. And when rabbi staff said this was not the settlement movement and was quoting Rabbi Cook, that's absolutely True, But Rabbi Kahane is the source of everything that we're seeing in Judea and Samaria, ideologically speaking. He was the first who said these things. He didn't grow up in the settlement movement, exactly, but he became part of the settlement movement. His grandkids, some of them are part of this ideology. So that's meaningful. And Ben Kvir definitely changed the way that police is treating these issues. And he would say, to his credit, because he would say police shouldn't be focused on Israelis should be focused, and the entire state should be focused on fighting Palestinian terror. So that's one thing. So Israel is not upholding the law to the police. Now, in the last two months, since Prime Minister Netanyahu decided that this is an issue warranting his attention, some things have changed. Dan and I want to underline that. And we suddenly see police announcements of a new command center aim to fight against Jewish violence in Judea and Samaria. That's a new thing, right? So there is some change in the last month and a half or two months. There is some change now on a distinct level. What the biggest project here of change is the nomination of Bezaled Smotrich and Ovid Struk, two ministers that really are from the party representing the settlement movement, religious Zionism. And what Smotrich got in the coalition agreement is that he is the Minister of Finance, but also a minister in the Defense Ministry. So there's the Defense Minister and there's another minister there that is Bezaled Smotrich. And he actually got full responsibility on every aspect of Israeli life, settlement life in the West Bank. And that means that it gave him, together with Orit Struk, responsible for settlements in general, for Hit Yash Vot, they got a lot of power to change completely the territories. This is the biggest political project in terms of changing the land in many years. And Rabbi Stav remarked on it with the farms issue today. The farms, the agriculture farms, quote, unquote. By the way, I asked the Settler Farm Union, how much agriculture product do you produce a year? You know, how much milk, how much cheese, how much wine. They said, let's get back to you. They didn't get back to me yet. I'm not saying they're not producing, but that's not the aim of the project. The aim of the project is taking control of the land. They now control them. More territory, more land, more acres. Then all of the settlements in the west bank together, they have taken control. So there is a family. They have their own shepherds and they control vast amounts of land. Now the idea there is that the Palestinian Authority says the settlement movement is taking control of these areas, starting to build there illegally. Therefore, these farms control the prospects of Jewish control of land. This is usually state controlled lands. This is not private, controlled by Jews or by Palestinians formally. Now that creates immediately confrontation with the Palestinians, Nadav.
- [41:18]
B
But you have to admit that all the farms are located in Zone C, which does not belong to the Palestinian Authority. And the Palestinians try constantly to enter to these areas and to build illegally. So the farms play a big role. As long as they don't hit Arabs and don't hit soldiers. That what is under the state's control and what is defined as a state land that should be preserved for the Jewish people or for the state's purposes, for whatever purpose they want to use it.
- [41:54]
C
Yeah, this is the argument made. First of all, the farms have an authorization to have sheep there and goats, but they don't have an authorization to form a new settlement.
- [42:07]
B
That's true.
- [42:08]
C
So they found all kinds of legal tricks. For instance, to have an antenna that is disconnected from the ground. All kinds of hacks legally for them to be legal, but in many ways they would not be considered legal before smotrich time. This in any case is causing massive confrontation. I'm not disagreeing with whereby stop saying this is a tool by the state. I'm saying that this tool by the state is for Palestinians much more worrying to some extent than the violence of the hilltop youth. Because for them, they have taken their sheep into these lands which are Area C and are state lands, they're not private lands for many years, then suddenly they have a farm there. Now, confrontation between a Jewish shepherd settler that is sometimes armed, sometimes isn't armed, and between a Palestinian shepherd is absolutely. You can't escape it. And it's happening on a daily basis. Now add to that and Rabbi Stav, you know this, the concept that every Palestinian and that the Palestinian Authority is preparing in October 7th in the west bank and that when they come to pick up olives during the Masik, during the picking of olives in September, October, they're actually collecting data and intelligence. This is something that Yossi Dagan is saying. He's a municipality head, he's not a hill top youth that legitimizes some sort of actions and violence or can legitimize violence against these people, whether it's state violence through the idf. Oh, we're going to call the IDF to do that, or it's going to be violence led by Hilltop Youth, which is strictly legal. It's a question. But there's a concept there that has become after October 7, very much the case that we can't live next to them. I wonder, Rabbi Stav, how do you see that concept? Because I'm hearing it all the time that after October 7th, it's impossible that everything changed.
- [44:08]
B
Well, first of all, now we are touching one of the very challenging issues. Will we be able to live in coexistence with them? I believe that there is no other way. Because if we want, and I belong to that political side in Israel that wants to remain in Judea and Samaria, but I want to remain there and to be committed to my moral values as well, I see no other choice but to live next to my Arab neighbors. And we will have to find a way. But the way does not mean necessarily that we should ignore all the violence that the Israelis are doing. And of course, we should not ignore all the terrorist attack that Palestinians are doing. And I think that the government has to be much more involved than what they're doing now.
- [44:56]
A
Okay, so, Rabbi Stava, that's maybe where I want to wrap up. So how do you think the Hilltop Youth violence should be addressed? Is it a law enforcement issue, or are you hoping that some of your fellow leaders within the movement that is in Judea and Samaria, that wants Israeli Jews to remain in Judea and Samaria, are you hoping it gets addressed through some sort of social, religious leadership within the community that's there?
- [45:21]
B
I think it requires at least three fundamental decisions of the government. A, to enforce its power on these youngsters. That's number one, what they're not doing today, or at least not doing enough today. B, I think it requires a lot of social assistance to these families, to these youngsters, that many of them came from families that are normal families, and they broke their relationship with their parents and with the families, and they need to be treated. That's number two. And by social workers, by psychologists, educators, et cetera, et cetera, which was not done enough. And number three, I think it requires creating a kind of trust between them and a certain group of rabbis that will be able to try to guide them in a way that will minimize the violence to something that in the national picture, will be able to live with.
- [46:20]
A
Okay, Rabbi Stav Nadav, thank you both for this conversation. I have a feeling this is not the last time we'll be digging into this. This was just an initial attempt to get into something that I think is raw for many of our listeners. In the Diaspora, some of whom are just frustrated that this makes defending Israel's position, defending it to the world harder when the world can use and often weaponize these images. So many in the Diaspora are just frustrated with the Israeli government. And like many Israelis, many in the Diaspora are just uncomfortable, if not distressed about what this issue means for the soul of Israeli life in Israeli society. So this is just something we hear about, as I mentioned at the beginning, all the time, and I don't think it'll be the last time. As I said, we get into it. So I want to thank you both for being here. And before we wrap, I do want to say that this is a good opportunity to let our Call Me Back listeners know that Nadav has launched a new Substack newsletter, which we highly encourage you to visit to subscribe to. We'll link to it in the show notes. His post on Substack from this week. It was on the New York Times Daily podcast and it was a sharp, unsettling analysis of an interview in which, as Nadav puts it, word Jewish was quietly replaced with the word Zionist in a way that is both revealing and infuriating. You can read it by following the link in the show notes the Dove. I actually had a real reaction to your commentary on that particular post because I think what you identify this interchangeability between Jewish and Zionist is a way to express a form of anti Semitism in a more politically correct way is very pervasive. It's not just at the Daily. It's not just in that episode. I have samples like this every week. So I guess maybe one question before we go for you is did you focus on the Daily episode because it reveals something that's pervasive, or did you think that it was an outlier?
- [48:18]
C
I think that it was just interesting to hear. It was so raw. The way that they interview a Palestinian who say the Jews are trying to dominate other religions in Eretz Israel. And then the interviewer is saying, oh, you're talking about Zionism, let's talk about Zionism. That kind of crash was so extreme. Defining Zionism as something that tries to dominate other religions, where did that come from? Even Palestinians are not saying that this is Zionism talking about expansionism. Right. They're talking about imperialism. But I thought that the interviewer was just panicked that the interviewee was saying something that could sound anti Semitic, so he was bailing him out by taking this case of Zionism, which we can all unite against. Right? Just a prime example.
- [49:09]
A
Yeah. Well, it's an important post and so I encourage our listeners to read that post and subscribe to the newsletter. And we'll be hitting some of the topics that Nadav writes about in future episodes. And until then, gentlemen, thank you both for doing this. As I said, I think we'll need to continue this conversation.
- [49:25]
B
Thank you.
- [49:26]
C
Thank you so much.
- [49:35]
A
That's our show for today. If you value the CallMeBack podcast and you want to support our mission, please subscribe to our weekly members only show, Inside Call Me Back. Inside Call Me Back is where Nadavael, Amit, Segal and I respond to challenging questions from listeners and have the conversations that typically occur after the cameras stop rolling. To subscribe, please follow the link in the show notes or you can go to arkmedia.org that's ark media.org Call Me Back is produced and edited by Lon Benatar. Arc Media's executive producer is Adam James Levin. Already our Production manager is Brittany Cohn, Sound and video editing by Liquid Audio. Our Associate producer is Maya Rockoff, Community management by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor. For more than a century, the Technion has been powering Israel. Its graduates help build the nation's roads and bridges, its water systems and electrical grid. You could draw a direct line from the Technion to the development of Israel's high tech sector. Today, as Israel recovers from the devastation of war, it needs the Technion more than ever. Technion scientists are developing new energy sources, sustainable food and water solutions, and breakthrough medical therapies, creating innovations for a better world that will also boost Israel's economy. You want to make Israel safe and strong. By supporting the Technion, you're investing in the people and the ideas that will help rebuild Israel for a better future. Because rebuilding isn't just about restoring what was lost, it's about creating what comes next. The Technion helped build Israel. Now the Technion is rebuilding Israel. Join us visit visit ats.org rebuild.