During the past two years, egged on by incitement by the Palestinian Authority and some $400 million per year of “pay for slay” rewards to terrorists who murder Jews, Palestinian Arab terrorists committed approximately 10,000 serious reported terror attacks against innocent Jews (about 14 serious attacks per day), in addition to widespread daily rock-throwing and riots. During this short period, Arab terrorists murdered 66 Jews and wounded as many as 500—a total of more than 24 casualties per month.
These are merely the reported attacks collected by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs; others go unreported. They include shootings, stabbings, Molotov cocktail attacks, fire bombings, car-ramming attacks, pipe bomb, boulder-throwing and attacks by IEDs: Improvised Explosive Devices.
For instance, this past September, armed with submachine guns produced in Palestinian Arab workshops, two Palestinian Arabs from near Ramallah opened fire on Jews waiting at a bus stop at Ramot Junction in Jerusalem. Six Jews whose sole crime was waiting for a ride were murdered, including a yeshivah maintenance worker known for his generosity and good deeds; a newlywed who emigrated from Spain; a bakery owner who immigrated from the United States; and a young man on his way to yeshivah carrying his holy books.
Another example was the murder of Esther Horgan, 52, a Jewish mother of six children, in Samaria a few years ago. Terrorist Muhammad Maruh Kabha confronted her while she was picking mushrooms, threw her on the ground when she tried to run away and pounded Esther’s head with a rock until she was dead. At his sentencing hearing, Esther’s unrepentant murderer insisted that Palestinian Arabs have the “right” to kill Jews.
One would never know that this is the actual situation by reading the mainstream press or recent troubling public statements by certain American Jewish organizations. That includes a pre-Passover letter signed by leaders and individuals in the Diaspora—from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements to groups hostile to Israel, such as J Street, New Israel Fund, Keshet and left-wing college professors.
Such statements ignore the real problem and serve to add to rising international antisemitism.
The P.A. and a well-funded industry of anti-Israel NGOs initiated the “settler violence” blood libel to smear Jews and Israel; demonize Jewish self-defense; attempt to wrest control of Judea and Samaria from Israel; attempt to end arms shipments to Israel; impose sanctions against innocent Jews; divert attention from the Hamas-led atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023; and incite more anti-Jewish violence while drawing attention away from the daily, murderous Palestinian Arab terrorism against Jews.
In fact, “settler violence” is extremely rare. Part of the “settler violence” delegitimization campaign conflates “settlers” with security forces and the State of Israel.
A detailed 125-page report by the group Regavim, issued in April 2025, titled “False Flags and Real Agendas: ‘Settler Violence’: A Modern Blood Libel,” analyzed the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) website, which collects (supposed) reports of “settler violence” fed to OCHA by anti-Israel NGOs and foreign governments, the P.A. and other anti-Israel sources.
Its careful analysis found that OCHA, the P.A. and anti-Israel NGOs counted the following items as “settler violence”:
• Arabs injured or killed while they were perpetrating terror attacks against Israelis;
• Arab attacks on Israelis (misclassified as Israeli attacks on Arabs);
• Jewish visits to the Temple Mount (16% of the alleged listed “incidents”); • Clashes with security forces (14% of the alleged “incidents”);
• Tourists visiting archaeological sites;
• Infrastructure work carried out legally by the State of Israel;
• Traffic accidents;
• Alleged “trespassing” by Israeli tourists or hikers, with no damage to any property or person (19% of the alleged “incidents”); • Incidents that took place outside of Judea and Samaria (20% of the alleged “incidents”);
• “Involvement in clashes,” with no indication as to who initiated or was responsible for the alleged clash;
• Other clearly non-violent incidents.
Regavim’s report, summarized in my congressional testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa in December, should be required reading for anyone claiming to speak about “settler violence.”
Notably, 98% of the incidents alleging death or injury to an Arab resulted from clashes with security forces, not “settlers.” Israeli security forces frequently have to stop Arab terrorists in the midst of committing attacks. Clashes also occur when Arab terrorists shoot at security forces attempting to arrest the terrorists for plotting or committing terror attacks. Israeli authorities deal harshly with any hint of such violence.
The Regavim report further found that these authorities, in fact, overzealously enforced laws against Jews in Judea and Samaria. Jews are three times as likely to be indicted for the same offenses, despite the fact that senior police officials repeatedly found that the overwhelming majority of complaints received by police against Jews turn out to be false and were submitted by left-wing movements to inflame the area. Due to the lack of veracity of the claims against Jews, at trial, these cases crumble, with Jews in Judea and Samaria having the lowest conviction rate anywhere in Israel.
The Regavim report also confirms earlier investigations. Columnist Caroline Glick summarized the findings of investigative reporter Kalman Liebskind and others that “in the vast majority of cases, the ‘settler violence’ was simply Israeli civilians trying to defend themselves against Palestinian terrorists and lynch mobs.”
For example, OCHA misclassified as “Jewish nationalist violence” an incident in which a lynch mob of a dozen Palestinian Arabs assaulted, beat with rocks and sticks, and wounded two Jewish motorists and four teenage passengers, who were finally rescued by Israeli security forces. Glick and Liebskind noted that such misclassification was routine.
The myth of widespread “settler violence” is a calculated blood libel. It’s long past time for every Jewish group and official to stop spreading such dangerous lies.
