(HELE artikklen nederst under Kilde)
"Opinion" |
"How Israel's Violent West Bank Settlers Place Minors in the Line of Fire"
"Once
again, after this weekend, a 14-year-old boy has been hospitalized and
the pattern of using minors in the settler project continues. How can
supposedly religious communities and leadership continue to endanger
children?"
Voksne israelske religiøse ledere på Vestbredden sender guttunger i fronten for provokasjoner med palestinerne der.
Skudeneshavn 1. juli 2025
Jan Marton Jensen
Kilde:
30. juni 2025
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-06-30/ty-article-opinion/.premium/how-israels-violent-west-bank-settlers-place-minors-in-the-line-of-fire/00000197-c0d3-da62-a9ff-e3df5b350000
HELE artikkelen i Haaretz 30. juni 2025:
Opinion |
How Israel's Violent West Bank Settlers Place Minors in the Line of Fire
Once again, after this weekend, a 14-year-old boy has been hospitalized and the pattern of using minors in the settler project continues. How can supposedly religious communities and leadership continue to endanger children?
 |
Jewish minors herd sheep in Wadi Rahim in the West BankCredit: Jacob Lazarus, Rabbis for Human Righ |
After a group of West Bank settlers attacked Israeli soldiers, army vehicles and even the battalion commander near the Palestinian village Kafr Malik on Friday our society is once again polarized and a 14-year-old boy, from the city of Beit She'an within the Green Line, who allegedly partook in the rioting was evacuated for medical treatment.
The enflamed discourse was further fanned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who claimed that the violent settlers represent "a small minority," and by the underlying double standard between the treatment of Palestinians and Jews by the IDF. Yet one key issue is left hanging, unaddressed: In the West Bank settler world, minors, Israeli children, are so often involved in these conflict situations, a practice often enthusiastically encouraged by their community leaders.
The incident on Friday night is unfortunately far from unique. Minors, many unaccompanied by guardians, are regularly involved in violent conflict across the West Bank's hilltops. In 2020, 16-year-old Ahuvia Sandak was killed in a car chase with the police, who were pursuing him after he was suspected of throwing stones at Palestinians. In 2024, 14-year-old Binyamin Ahimeir was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist, as he grazed sheep alone near the Malachei Hashalom West Bank settlement.
Once again, after this weekend, a 14-year-old boy has been hospitalized and the pattern of using minors in the settler project continues. This endeavor, which claims to center around Jewish rights to land, IDF incompetence and the need to settle the West Bank's hilltops with Jews to defend their communities ignores negligence when it comes to the protection of children, many of whom are at-risk youth, living in outposts in high conflict areas. How can supposedly religious communities and leadership continue to endanger their children?
In my human rights work in the West Bank, I am consistently unsettled by the near constant presence of Israeli minors in settler violence. In the South Hebron Hills, near Susya, just two weeks ago, I saw a group of children aged twelve to sixteen approaching a village and carrying knives unsheathed. In the south Jordan Valley, near Yitav, last week, teens marched flocks of goats through Palestinian communities, sparking altercations with local residents.
If Palestinians are a bloodthirsty collective, as these religious Zionist communities often portray, then why are settler communities exposing their children to these dangers and sending them into Palestinian villages?
Minors are not just an addition to settler presence: They are the backbone of outposts across Area C, sometimes led by adults but often sent alone or in pairs to undertake this dangerous mission. In the Kisan desert new outposts are often staffed by a rotation of settler children sent to cause trouble for Palestinian communities and then rotated out once the police or army have a case against them. These kids, often from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, are radicalized by settler communities, often dressed in white clothes, and can be found riding ATVs, using phones and tearing down tents and greenhouses even when it clearly desecrates Shabbat. These actions are not only permissible in this new mutated Judaism, but encouraged.
As someone who worked for many years in youth education with religious children in the World Bnei Akiva youth movement and the Jewish Agency, I feel a deep sense of responsibility that Israeli society has neglected the welfare of these vulnerable youth. We have sent them into the lion's den and allowed them to be radicalized by Jewish extremists.
The responses by settler leadership including rabbis and national politicians to the violence on Friday night not only ignore the welfare of these children, but actively encourage their involvement.
Since Ahuvia Sandak's tragic death he has been raised to the level of a martyr with new West Bank outposts named after him, sending a clear message to other children that this is an admired path, one which will earn respect and support from their community. Even more worrying, there is active recruitment of youth-at-risk to join the ranks in the hilltops, with West Bank farms officially recognized by welfare services as foster institutions.
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| Protests in Jerusalem following Ahuvia Sandak's death by far-right activists, including hilltop youthCredit: Ohad Zwigenberg |
The very communities and families charged with protecting their safety are instead enlisting them into vigilante combat.
The long chain of neglect reaches deep into the religious Zionist community, and is compounded by the political leadership, who leverage ministerial positions to shield violent settlers from prosecution, provide them with moral and financial support and encourage others to join their cause.
In many ways this is a lost battle. In addition to the deep damage caused by allowing elected extremists to become political linchpins in the government, Israeli society must also address this flagrant abuse of minors. Children must be protected from violent conflict.
In these moments, former Prime Minister Golda Meir's famously paternalistic quote t
hat "peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us" has been turned on its head. Not only are the West Bank national religious settlers endangering their children for their hatred of Palestinians, but the rest of us Israelis are passively permitting this neglect.
Anton Goodman is a religious Jewish peace activist in Israel. He is the Director of Partnerships at Rabbis for Human Rights, and serves on the board of Oz VeShalom the Orthodox Jewish Peace Movement in Israel.
