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In the shadow of the Iran war, violence has increased in the Israeli occupied West Bank, where hundreds of thousands of Israelis live on land Palestinians say is theirs. This month, groups of radical Israeli settlers have stepped up attacks on Palestinians. The violence is drawing rebuke from the U.S. and prompting a change in Israeli discourse but, as NPR's Daniel Estrin reports, little change on the ground.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Spring is lush in the Palestinian village of Qusra.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
ESTRIN: Red poppies carpet green hills. But recently, Israeli settlers left their mark, too.
The graffiti that they left several weeks ago - death to Arabs, it says here in Hebrew.
(SOUNDBITE OF GATE OPENING)
ESTRIN: Behind this gate, you see a strawberry patch, where a group of masked Israeli settlers ripped apart a greenhouse a few weeks ago. An unprovoked attack, says Palestinian mayor Hani Odeh, who takes us to a strawberry farmer and calls out his name.
HANI ODEH: Moatasem (ph).
ESTRIN: Moatasem Odeh (ph) greets us on crutches...
(SOUNDBITE OF CRUTCHES TAPPING)
ESTRIN: ...And leads us into his home, where he recounts what happened and bursts into tears.
MUATASEM ODEH: (Non-English language spoken, crying).
ESTRIN: "The worst part, I can't get out of my head," Odeh says. He watched one settler spray bullets, watched his 28-year-old son fall to the ground, killed.
M ODEH: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: "I said, my son." And then he was attacked by another settler, stabbed four times in his legs while the settler shouted...
M ODEH: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: "Die. Die. Die." That was three weeks ago. The Israeli military says it condemns incidents like this. It says police are investigating and apprehended some Israeli suspects. No charges announced.
Since the Iran war began, human rights groups report Israeli settler attacks in more than a hundred Palestinian villages. One attack was caught on tape last week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Yelling) Ow, ow, ah, ah, (inaudible).
ESTRIN: You see masked settlers with clubs attacking a Jewish Israeli solidarity activist trying to protect Palestinians.
The Trump administration doesn't always speak out about this, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed public concern. U.S. pressure led to a wave of rare condemnations by senior Israeli officials who usually dismiss settler violence as a fringe phenomenon. Even Israel's most influential commentator, Amit Segal, said on TV...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AMIT SEGAL: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: "There's no question it's terror," he said. He's a key voice in the Israeli settler movement. This is new, says Tomer Persico, who researches Israeli settlers and modern Jewish identity.
TOMER PERSICO: Suddenly, people are using the words Jewish terrorism. These words were denied over and over again for the last few years. And what happened, I think, is simple. The Trump administration told Netanyahu that enough is enough.
ESTRIN: And Israel has responded with lip service, he says.
PERSICO: You can denounce the Jewish terrorism there, but it's useless unless you actually change policy.
ESTRIN: In fact, Israel continues to equip settlers with military-issued rifles and still provides army protection for settlers during new land grabs.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOTORBIKE ENGINE)
ESTRIN: A short drive from where the Palestinian father and son were attacked, Israeli settlers stop for hummus at this roadside restaurant.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORNS HONKING)
ESTRIN: Many settlers we speak to here bristle at the idea that settler violence is prevalent, like Teddy Renick (ph), originally a New Yorker.
TEDDY RENICK: Did you see it?
ESTRIN: We just met someone who was...
RENICK: Who claims that they were attacked. Did you see them being attacked? Did you see the violence?
ESTRIN: He was sitting in his bed. He was stabbed, and he saw his son get killed.
RENICK: I don't know if it's true. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But it's not some mass thing. You're not seeing mass arrests.
ESTRIN: There haven't been mass arrests. Rights groups say Israel rarely prosecutes these crimes. One rights group says at least seven Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded by settlers in just the last month.
There was one change this week. Israel pulled a military battalion out of the West Bank after CNN filmed those soldiers assaulting and detaining its reporters and calling for revenge against Palestinians. It was on U.S. TV, footage you rarely see on Israel's nightly news. That has to change, says Odeh, the Palestinian man who watched his son get killed.
M ODEH: (Non-English language spoken, crying).
ESTRIN: Filled with grief, he suddenly switches to fluent Hebrew. He wants to drive his message home to Israelis.
M ODEH: (Speaking Hebrew).
ESTRIN: "The Jews are afraid to put this on Israeli television. I don't know why. The whole world needs to see this," he says. Daniel Estrin, NPR News, the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
(SOUNDBITE OF CURTIS MAYFIELD'S "THINK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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