Back in June 2023, Israeli settlers launched a mob attack on the occupied Palestinian village of Huware, and Israeli soldiers stood idly by and let the settlers run a rampage against Palestinian civilians. Settler attacks are routine in the occupied West Bank. Israeli soldiers rarely intervene to protect Palestinians, which is a requirement under international law. Instead, soldiers actively aid the settlers, stand idle, or arrest the Palestinian victims. Occasionally, a minority segment of the Israeli public is made aware of a high-profile settler attack, such as Huwara, too prominent to ignore.
Here, most Israeli observers are not concerned with the safety of Palestinians. They are not even particularly ashamed by the conduct of their fellow Jews. No, the offense is to their sense of self, their self-flattering nationalism of a nation that practices “purity of arms.” As the sociologist Stanley Cohen, in his book “States of Denial,” related, Israeli criticism of the occupation is self-centered: Less concerned with the victims and more with what the violence against Palestinian does to Israel’s “soul.”
This phenomenon was historically so common in Israel that genuine Jewish opponents of the occupation branded it the “shoot and cry” ploy: Happily occupying Palestinians, but then feeling bad for yourself. These Israelis never minded the ethnic cleansing. They just objected to the mood and tone of the violence, as if the biggest problem with Israeli settler violence was that the Palestinians were not first greeted warmly and offered a glass of water.
The brief Israeli coverage of Huware consisted of Israeli reassuring themselves that this is “not who we are” while then carrying on with their lives, totally unconcerned that settler violence has not abated. It was not unprecedented. This cycle repeats itself over and over. In fact, an Israeli prime minister, while in office, has referred to settler terrorism as a pogrom, just as the IDF chief did in reference to Huwara. But nothing ever changes.
These displays of criticism are deeply self-serving, for domestic and international audiences, and not reflective of any commitment to actually address settler violence. But what has changed is that right-wing Zionists are suddenly decrying settler violence, usually the province of Israeli centrists or liberals (as insincere as the latter can be).
These right-wing Zionists are not given to even self-serving displays of admonitions. They are unapologetic in their belief in Jewish supremacy, support the settlement movement (if not actively living in settlements themselves), and have no sense of humanity toward Palestinians. “Shoot and cry” was always a faux-righteous liberal project in Israel, something detested by right-wing Zionists who now represent the majority of the Israeli public, particularly the youth. So the whole “shoot and cry” does not carry much purchase in Israel today, where most people are proud to post TikToks mocking starving Palestinian children and no longer care to even pretend to be offended by the violence done in their name.
The view of the Israeli right is personified by former prime minister and religious nationalist Naftali Bennet, who boasted about killing Arabs — “I already killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there is absolutely no problem with that.” — and ran a previous campaign lamenting what he perceived as an Israeli tendency to excessively apologize. If Bennet thinks Israeli apologize too much for their apartheid, it would be interesting to see the evidence. For hardcore Zionists, there is no need for a liberal pretense; they derive enormous arrogance from their power over Palestinians and make no apology for it.
So why are right-wing Zionists suddenly voicing opposition to settler violence, something that has been ongoing for decades? Optics, pure and simple. In the past few years, the U.S. media has increasingly paid attention to settler violence, especially since the tentative ceasefire in Gaza in 2025. Settler violence and the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians have reached such unprecedented levels that it has become hard for the legacy press and corporate media to ignore.
But just as liberal lamentations about settler violence were never designed to mobilize opposition to the settler project, the right-wing variant worries that the settler project and its hoped-for goal of Greater Israel will become less tenable if the world sees the ugly face of Israeli colonization. While it will not be a political liability in Israel, it puts pressure on Israel’s outside supporters. These people are not concerned with Palestinians, but rather that settlers are doing a disservice to their cause by too visibly attacking and expelling Palestinians.
These Zionists still oppose a Palestinian state and support ethnic cleansing and apartheid, but they want it to be done quietly and under a fig leaf of legality. Instead of settlers violently attacking Palestinian villagers, they want the Israeli state to declare Palestinian-owned land to be “state land” and force the Palestinians out under a legal writ signed off by Israel’s grotesque farce of a high court. They want to be able to cite ostensibly legal pretexts to justify land theft. The settlers merely unmask Israeli colonization, showcasing to the whole world the vicious and violent nature of the Israeli state without the wrapping of bureaucratic banality.
