Palestine weekly wrap: Israeli security agencies sound alarm on settlers

A rare reckoning took place within Israel’s security establishment this week, as senior officials issued increasingly stark warnings about settler violence in the occupied West Bank. According to Israeli media reports, the commander of Israeli military forces in the West Bank, Major-General Avi Bluth, warned in a closed forum that rising settler attacks could spark a Palestinian uprising, and called the actions of the settlers “a disgrace to the Jewish people”. Recommended Stories list of 3 items end of list Former chief of the Mossad intelligence agency, Tamir Pardo, toured Palestinian villages that had suffered settler attacks and said that what he witnessed reminded him, the son of Holocaust survivors, of anti-Jewish violence in the last century. “What I saw today made me feel ashamed to be Jewish,” he told Israel’s Channel 13. Yet, even as these warnings circulated, settler attacks widened, new illegal outposts were established, and Israel’s navy intercepted a humanitarian flotilla in international waters. One illustration of the gap between the warnings and the reality on the ground came on Saturday, when the top brass of the Israel Police and the Israel Prison Service attended a 50th birthday celebration for Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, according to Haaretz. Among the attendees were far-right activists convicted for offences related to anti-Palestinian violence. …