About two weeks ago, we were exposed to an unusual clash between Defense Minister Israel Katz and Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth over an order concerning Tal Yinon Dardik, who is being held on suspicion of abusing Palestinians.
The political leadership’s attempt to publicly criticize a senior officer whose job is to fulfill his duty as the sovereign authority responsible for security and public order is troubling for anyone seeking to preserve the principle of state responsibility. Where the political echelon should be backing officers implementing measured security policy, political considerations at times appear to take precedence over operational needs.
Against the backdrop of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conspicuous silence in response to Katz’s remarks, the position of former prime minister and former Yesha Council director-general Naftali Bennett stands out. Bennett has not been afraid to say what he believes is right, even during an election period. Asked in an interview Wednesday morning with 103FM whether he supports reinstating administrative detention for settlers in the West Bank, Bennett answered firmly: “Where it is relevant, yes. Where it is not relevant, no. I’m not afraid of it.”
Settlers in the village of Qusra
(Photo: Families under siege in Qusra)
But the consequences of this conduct do not remain confined to meeting rooms. They spill into the field and create an increasingly complicated reality with Israel’s closest ally.
For days, Palestinian families in Qusra have been under what they describe as a siege by extremist Jews who established an outpost near their homes and blocked access to them. Loui Abu Ridi, a U.S. resident who owns a home in the affected area of Qusra, said that since the outpost was established near his property, his brother and son, who live there, have been cut off from the village.
“The real danger is to my brother,” he said. “He isn’t getting food or water. For three days now, he has been completely cut off from the village.”
The repercussions extend far beyond the local arena and have reached decision-makers in Washington. Under the Trump administration, images emerging from the area are being received with deep concern. While Abu Ridi himself is currently in the United States, members of his family remain cut off from basic necessities in the West Bank. Abu Ridi has responded by mobilizing contacts across Congress.
The rise in violence by extremist settlers is also reverberating in the American media and political establishment. One person who has seen the consequences up close and repeatedly warned about the loss of allies is Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, an observant Jew who lived in the West Bank before taking up his diplomatic post.
How serious has the situation become? On Thursday morning, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee made a dramatic statement. Huckabee, an evangelical Christian Zionist who firmly believes Judea and Samaria were given by God to the Jewish people, called Jewish extremists involved in the incidents “Israeli terrorists” and demanded that they be expelled — a significant escalation in his diplomatic rhetoric. He also described his intensive involvement in efforts to have the restrictions lifted.
Not his first warning
Huckabee has spoken before about violence in the West Bank, describing attacks against the local population in unequivocal terms as “acts of terror” and warning of their cumulative damage.
And anyone who believes the issue is confined to certain corners of Washington should listen to one of Israel’s strongest allies, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has repeatedly spoken sharply about settler violence and called for meaningful action against it.
Dr. Kobby Barda Photo: Tal GivoniThis is where the broader circle closes. These developments expose a troubling reality in which the trust and support of one of Israel’s most important ideological constituencies — America’s Christian Zionist right, a community that believes in Judea and Samaria and traditionally rejects the term “West Bank” — is beginning to crack. This is the same constituency that stood behind a series of legislative efforts in U.S. states, built over years of sustained work by the Yesha Council.
Within that landscape, Vice President JD Vance stands out. Vance, formerly a senator from Ohio and now one of the Republican Party’s most prominent future leaders, has deep political ties to the state. When reports reach his office that the family of an American citizen from Ohio is under siege in an area under Israeli control, they can become a powerful catalyst for action by him and other senior White House officials.
Vance, who has built much of his political identity around protecting Americans at home and abroad, is likely to view such a case through that lens. If Israel’s leadership continues confronting commanders in the field instead of enforcing the law, we are rapidly approaching a point at which Israel may lose its ability to defend the legitimacy of its conduct in Judea and Samaria and risk dragging its critical strategic alliance with the United States down a dangerous slope from which it will be difficult to return.
Dr. Kobby Barda is a senior researcher at the Jewish People Policy Institute and the Multidisciplinary School at Holon Institute of Technology (HIT).