A new United Nations report on “settler violence” in Judea and Samaria portrays its findings as carefully researched, when, in fact, it relies on data built on sand, observers tell JNS.
The report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem is its fifth report since it was established in May 2021 by the U.N. Human Rights Council in the immediate aftermath of Israel’s “Operation Guardian of the Walls.”
Previous reports from the commission have all condemned Israel, accusing the Jewish State of “genocide,” “imposing starvation” and “systematic destruction” of healthcare and education in Gaza. Israel refuses to cooperate with the commission due to its bias. The United States has also criticized it.
In its most recent report, the commission claimed “settler violence” is on the rise and accused the State of Israel of being “primarily responsible.” Israel enables such attacks through “financial and military support,” it said. Israeli courts and law enforcement grant impunity to those purportedly carrying out the violence, it continued.
Largely invented
The main problem with the report is that the so-called “settler violence” is largely invented, say Eugene Kontorovich and Avraham Shalev, authors of a Kohelet Policy Forum report that debunks the U.N. statistics used to assert such a problem exists.
“The U.N.’s methodology is unreliable, as it has traditionally counted as ‘settler violence’ even incidents of self-defense by Jews, and depends for its facts almost entirely on Palestinian self-reporting,” Kontorovich, a professor at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School and director of the international law department at Kohelet, told JNS.
“Yet even by their statistics, the so-called settler violence epidemic is a mirage, with serious violent crime by settlers occurring at a rate vastly lower than major American and European cities. According to the U.N., the settler violence problem is about as severe as the violent crime problem in Boise, Idaho, or Gilbert, Arizona,” he said.
The main source for “settler violence” statistics are those compiled by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OCHA-oPT).
“The report relies on the flawed statistics provided by OCHA,” Shalev told JNS. “Every event between Jews and Arabs is considered settler violence regardless of who initiated it.”
OCHA-oPT counted as “settler violence” a well-publicized incident in which David Stern, a U.S. citizen and former Marine, wounded a Palestinian who opened fire on him. Stern was seriously injured in the attack.
Kontorovich and Shalev note in their report that OCHA-oPT uses phrases such as “settler violence,” “settler-related incidents” and “settler attacks” so broadly as to include anti-terror operations and clashes with Israeli security forces. Virtually all, between 98%-99%, of incidents recorded on OCHA-oPT’s database “involve confrontations with Israeli security forces, not settlers,” according to their report.
Nonviolent and noncriminal activities
OCHA-oPT doesn’t collect the raw data itself, relying on left-leaning NGOs. Among them are Addameer, B’tselem, Defense for Children International–Palestine (DCI-P), Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR). All these groups endorse the worst libels against Israel, including that it commits genocide.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense has designated Addameer, Al-Haq and DCI-P as terror organizations affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Nonviolent and noncriminal activities are also counted as “settler violence.” According to the analysis, OCHA recorded more than 8,000 incidents between January 2016 and April 2023, including cases of alleged trespassing without injuries or property damage.
The Kohelet report states that of 1,704 incidents logged in eastern Jerusalem, 1,361 involved Jewish visits to the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, while another 1,613 incidents in Judea and Samaria involved Israelis hiking or touring areas claimed by Palestinians, meaning from their perspective that Jews should be barred from entering.
Kontorovich and Shalev debunk the characterization of “settler violence” as a large-scale or pervasive phenomenon.
Citing U.N. figures claiming nine Palestinian deaths and 838 injuries attributed to settlers in 2025, they show that assuming all nine deaths were homicides—a characterization they dispute—the resulting per capita rate among the Palestinian population would be lower than homicide rates in major European cities and well below those of many large U.S. cities. The average American city has a murder rate between 15 and 25 per 100,000 residents per year. Nine deaths in a population of roughly 3.2 million Palestinians translates to a per capita rate of about 1.29 deaths per 100,000 people.
While the U.N. report misleads about “settler violence,” it “ignores the background of increasing Palestinian terrorism, both organized and grassroots,” Shalev told JNS.
The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) recorded 1,374 foiled Palestinian terrorist plots and 54 successful ones in 2025. That included 717 cases of gunfire, 630 involving bombs, along with stabbings, rammings, suicide attacks and kidnappings. In 2025, 197 Israelis were injured and 25 murdered, according to the Kohelet report.
