In the West Bank, ongoing violence against Jews requires "context," while Jewish violence is disproportionately the focus — because few people understand the facts on the ground.
What a pleasure to read a thoughtful and nuanced piece that actually provides "context." Without this background information and some real data, it's impossible to understand the complex dynamics of the interactions on the ground in Judea and Samaria. I can see why the antisemites in the MSM deliberately obscure the realities behind the headlines, but why have the Israelis been so feeble and clueless in presenting their side of the story?
I saw my first "West Bank Settlement," the town of Modi'in, back in 2010. I was expecting something like a frontier settlement on the prairie with covered wagons and men in coonskin caps. Instead, I found a small suburban town not unlike like West Orange, NJ, or Rohnert Park, CA, with schools and playgrounds, and little neighborhood shopping centers. Who would
have thought that the "settlers" were such ordinary middle-class people, and that calling Modi'in a settlement made as much sense as calling Boca Raton a settlement?
The situation that Nachum Kaplan has described here is certainly more complex and requires more effort to parse than the revelations I experienced on a first visit to Modi'in. But the common thread that connects them both is that the reality on the ground has very little to do with the media's representation of that reality which has been formulated for the specific purpose of vilifying Israel in the eyes of the world.
Thank you for this insight into the reality of Judea and Samaria, the truth of which is deliberately kept from the rest of the world. This should be a front page article on all the - oops, the very media who are refusing to show it. And so the hate grows. But I will save this to share with friends and others who should know.
It was so refreshing to read a truthful essay about what is really going on in Judea Samaria. Thank you so much, but I only wish those who perpetrate the lies and exaggerations would read and know the truth about what you have to say.
I would just add that the Israeli media is almost as bad as the international media. Most, even including Israel HaYom, are leftist and will print anything that makes Israel look bad knowing that the international media will pick it up and run with it. One has to wonder at the level of self-hate on the Israeli left.
I am puzzled by one part of your generally excellent defense of Israeli settlers in Area A. As you say, Israel controls and administers Area A. Yet you also tell us that the Palestinian Authority has unlawfully erected more than 80,000 structures, and that many of the illegal (under Israeli law) Israeli outposts are motivated by preventing more of these illegal Palestinian land grabs. But the obvious question is why successive Israeli governments haven't been demolishing these illegal Palestinian buildings all along, and why the current government isn't aggressively halting new PA construction in Area C. And the follow-up question is why, even if the Israeli government is failing to enforce its own laws, private settlers are entitled to step in to prevent further Palestinian encroachments. Please enlighten us further on what is going on here!
DISGUSTED! Stop referring to legitimate Israeli communities and their residents as “settlements” and “settlers.” These are not foreign enclaves but established communities on ancestral Jewish land. The continued use of this language is inaccurate, politically loaded, and reinforces a false narrative that delegitimizes Israel’s presence and history.
Where are the Jewish and Israeli media, and the well-funded charities, in confronting this narrative? Few Israeli outlets have offered a clear, sustained account of events or adequately conveyed the scale of ongoing violence against Israel. This silence and fragmentation have allowed hostile and misleading narratives to dominate global discourse.
The spread of libel and outright misinformation—originating in Gaza and irresponsibly amplified by major international media organizations—has caused serious and lasting harm. World media outlets that falsely name individuals or communities are not merely negligent; they are actively contributing to defamation. Those affected should pursue legal action against organizations such as the BBC and major U.S. media outlets. Even when cases do not prevail, they force accountability and publicly challenge the legitimacy of false reporting.
Israel depends on the support of the Jewish diaspora, non-Muslim allies, and Christian partners. By failing to confront libel and misinformation forcefully and consistently, Israel undermines that support and allows hostile media to control the narrative.
OK, Sam. But don't ever again mourn that your ancestors were expelled from the ancestral land of the Spanish Catholics. Or, for that matter, Berlin. Are you SURE you want to draw your map of the world on the basis of 2000-year-old borders?
The narrative you object to is misleading only insofar as it isn't transparent ENOUGH in explaining the Smotrich/Ben Gvir intent to ethnic-cleanse the West Bank. You can't really expect the 99% of the world that rejects their (and your) eschatological geography to applaud it.
This is the sort of lying, victim shite that we get from vile Israeli nazi scum, ie; colonialist trash. Remove them by force, back to the borders of the state they were, disastrously, gifted in 1947. They have abused the privilege ever since , killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and committing endless evil atrocities on illegally occupied Palestine.
If they don't return to inside the 1947 borders, the privilege they were wrongly granted should be permanently ended and the abortive, genocidal state of Israel expunged from existence and returned to form part of the original Palestinian state.
Chaver, even the NY Times has figured out that the settlers are treating the Palestinians living in the West Bank (especially outside cities) as we treated the American Indians, and to the same end. And you know what?—the Indians committed all sorts of atrocious violence against the Anglo settlers who were intent on seizing their homes.
Palestinians under attack have no recourse to police. The police are themselves often settlers and protect or even assist settlers as they destroy Arabs' property. They have no recourse to the IDF; the IDF refers them to the police.
The feebleness of the Hasbara campaign is because the (relatively) civilized countries have backed off from ethnic cleansing. Israel was born too late to get the morals of the 19th and early 20th centuries on treatment of native residents.
The reporting around this has always seemed bizarre and improbable to me. Thanks for confirming my suspicions. Now how to hold the media accountable for their poisonous distortions?
The Left Wing Israeli Press including The Times of Israel and Ha'aretz are just as guilty as the MSM in ridiculing the Jews of Judea and Samaria. They don't want an Israeli presence in Ayosh as that is a barrier to "peaceful co-existence" with the Muslims.
Israel can have a presence in the West Bank. It just has to establish the same rule of Law for citizenship and protection of real property for non-Jews as for Jews. Not doing so is creating an apartheid annex (I'll agree that Israel within the Green Line is not an apartheid state).
What a pleasure to read a thoughtful and nuanced piece that actually provides "context." Without this background information and some real data, it's impossible to understand the complex dynamics of the interactions on the ground in Judea and Samaria. I can see why the antisemites in the MSM deliberately obscure the realities behind the headlines, but why have the Israelis been so feeble and clueless in presenting their side of the story?
I saw my first "West Bank Settlement," the town of Modi'in, back in 2010. I was expecting something like a frontier settlement on the prairie with covered wagons and men in coonskin caps. Instead, I found a small suburban town not unlike like West Orange, NJ, or Rohnert Park, CA, with schools and playgrounds, and little neighborhood shopping centers. Who would
have thought that the "settlers" were such ordinary middle-class people, and that calling Modi'in a settlement made as much sense as calling Boca Raton a settlement?
The situation that Nachum Kaplan has described here is certainly more complex and requires more effort to parse than the revelations I experienced on a first visit to Modi'in. But the common thread that connects them both is that the reality on the ground has very little to do with the media's representation of that reality which has been formulated for the specific purpose of vilifying Israel in the eyes of the world.
Thank you for this insight into the reality of Judea and Samaria, the truth of which is deliberately kept from the rest of the world. This should be a front page article on all the - oops, the very media who are refusing to show it. And so the hate grows. But I will save this to share with friends and others who should know.
You are a disgusting, congenitally lying nazi.
Thank you for posting what Western MSM refuses to publish.
You are literal filth
Terrific and long-needed explanation. Thank you Nachum! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
It was so refreshing to read a truthful essay about what is really going on in Judea Samaria. Thank you so much, but I only wish those who perpetrate the lies and exaggerations would read and know the truth about what you have to say.
Oh look, nazi scum is lying
Oh look, the same old, same old use of the word Nazi. Try and find another word for your delusional narratives.
I would just add that the Israeli media is almost as bad as the international media. Most, even including Israel HaYom, are leftist and will print anything that makes Israel look bad knowing that the international media will pick it up and run with it. One has to wonder at the level of self-hate on the Israeli left.
I am puzzled by one part of your generally excellent defense of Israeli settlers in Area A. As you say, Israel controls and administers Area A. Yet you also tell us that the Palestinian Authority has unlawfully erected more than 80,000 structures, and that many of the illegal (under Israeli law) Israeli outposts are motivated by preventing more of these illegal Palestinian land grabs. But the obvious question is why successive Israeli governments haven't been demolishing these illegal Palestinian buildings all along, and why the current government isn't aggressively halting new PA construction in Area C. And the follow-up question is why, even if the Israeli government is failing to enforce its own laws, private settlers are entitled to step in to prevent further Palestinian encroachments. Please enlighten us further on what is going on here!
DISGUSTED! Stop referring to legitimate Israeli communities and their residents as “settlements” and “settlers.” These are not foreign enclaves but established communities on ancestral Jewish land. The continued use of this language is inaccurate, politically loaded, and reinforces a false narrative that delegitimizes Israel’s presence and history.
Where are the Jewish and Israeli media, and the well-funded charities, in confronting this narrative? Few Israeli outlets have offered a clear, sustained account of events or adequately conveyed the scale of ongoing violence against Israel. This silence and fragmentation have allowed hostile and misleading narratives to dominate global discourse.
The spread of libel and outright misinformation—originating in Gaza and irresponsibly amplified by major international media organizations—has caused serious and lasting harm. World media outlets that falsely name individuals or communities are not merely negligent; they are actively contributing to defamation. Those affected should pursue legal action against organizations such as the BBC and major U.S. media outlets. Even when cases do not prevail, they force accountability and publicly challenge the legitimacy of false reporting.
Israel depends on the support of the Jewish diaspora, non-Muslim allies, and Christian partners. By failing to confront libel and misinformation forcefully and consistently, Israel undermines that support and allows hostile media to control the narrative.
OK, Sam. But don't ever again mourn that your ancestors were expelled from the ancestral land of the Spanish Catholics. Or, for that matter, Berlin. Are you SURE you want to draw your map of the world on the basis of 2000-year-old borders?
The narrative you object to is misleading only insofar as it isn't transparent ENOUGH in explaining the Smotrich/Ben Gvir intent to ethnic-cleanse the West Bank. You can't really expect the 99% of the world that rejects their (and your) eschatological geography to applaud it.
Exactly.
Sorry, I meant to write Area C (not Area A) in the comment I just posted.
Here is what the NYT posted today, Dec. 21: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/20/world/middleeast/west-bank-settlements.html.
Quite a contradiction to this article.
And another liar.
This is the sort of lying, victim shite that we get from vile Israeli nazi scum, ie; colonialist trash. Remove them by force, back to the borders of the state they were, disastrously, gifted in 1947. They have abused the privilege ever since , killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and committing endless evil atrocities on illegally occupied Palestine.
If they don't return to inside the 1947 borders, the privilege they were wrongly granted should be permanently ended and the abortive, genocidal state of Israel expunged from existence and returned to form part of the original Palestinian state.
Chaver, even the NY Times has figured out that the settlers are treating the Palestinians living in the West Bank (especially outside cities) as we treated the American Indians, and to the same end. And you know what?—the Indians committed all sorts of atrocious violence against the Anglo settlers who were intent on seizing their homes.
Palestinians under attack have no recourse to police. The police are themselves often settlers and protect or even assist settlers as they destroy Arabs' property. They have no recourse to the IDF; the IDF refers them to the police.
The feebleness of the Hasbara campaign is because the (relatively) civilized countries have backed off from ethnic cleansing. Israel was born too late to get the morals of the 19th and early 20th centuries on treatment of native residents.
The reporting around this has always seemed bizarre and improbable to me. Thanks for confirming my suspicions. Now how to hold the media accountable for their poisonous distortions?
The Left Wing Israeli Press including The Times of Israel and Ha'aretz are just as guilty as the MSM in ridiculing the Jews of Judea and Samaria. They don't want an Israeli presence in Ayosh as that is a barrier to "peaceful co-existence" with the Muslims.
Israel can have a presence in the West Bank. It just has to establish the same rule of Law for citizenship and protection of real property for non-Jews as for Jews. Not doing so is creating an apartheid annex (I'll agree that Israel within the Green Line is not an apartheid state).
Thank you for calling out this loaded and incorrect terminology that perpetuates misinformation!